David and Pat Westbay Holiday Newsletter 2021

Greetings, all!

It has been a year of fun and happiness, along with uncertainty and concern, for us here in California. We did a little traveling, got out of the house a little more often, participated in a few more activities, and moved a little closer to what life was like before the coronavirus changed so many things for everyone.

 

At the beginning of 2021, we got our first COVID-19 vaccination shots, followed by our second doses in February. (We got our booster shots a couple of months ago, so we are as protected as we can get at the moment.) By June we felt comfortable enough to fly to Texas to visit our son Ben and his wife Lisa.  We had not seen them in person in over a year by that time, so our stay with them was a real treat. By the fall, David felt safe enough to audition for a play at Theatre 40, where he has worked before. He was cast, and enjoyed being part of the fully vaccinated and protected production of “As Good as Gold,” a new comedy. The production’s run was cut short by a water leak in the school building where the theater is located, but it was fun while it lasted.

 

Both Pat and David took a number of online classes over the course of the year; Spanish and literature for Pat, acting and improvisation for David. We both look forward to more classes in the new year.

 

Early in December, Ben and Lisa came to visit us here in California, and we all went to the two Disneyland parks. That was a great time. As of the writing of this note, we will be flying to Texas in a few days to spend Christmas with Ben and Lisa at their home. We will be back home shortly before 2022 arrives. We are very excited to share the holiday in person with the kids.

 

With COVID-19 cases increasing right now, we are pausing plans for the new year that involve traveling or large gatherings. We hope that things settle down soon so that we can enjoy life as fully as we would like. Meanwhile we will continue with our online classes, video chats with Ben and Lisa, and other such low-risk activities. Life is as good as you make it, and we intend to make it as good as we can while staying safe and healthy.

 

We hope that you have a safe and healthy holiday season and New Year!

 

David and Pat Westbay

 

The Westbay Family Holiday Newsletter, 2020 Edition

 

Dear friends and family,

It is with a great deal of relief that we mark the approaching end of 2020. For us, as for just about everyone on planet Earth, 2020 has been a year filled with struggles, frustrations, uncertainty and sadness. But it has not been without its moments of fun, and joy, and hope.

A lot of the good stuff for us came in the first three months of the year. Ben and Lisa made a spontaneous visit out here in California to see us in January, to help Pat celebrate her birthday. Then we flew to Texas at the end of January to be there for some work being done on the house that we own and were renting to Ben and Lisa. David performed in a few murder-mystery shows. At the beginning of March, we went on a Star Trek cruise which was a great time.

Just before we left on the cruise, news of the coronavirus was starting to get a lot of attention, and we worried a bit about how that would affect the cruise. We got through the cruise with no problems, but within a few days after getting home, things started shutting down. Two other cruises that we had planned were canceled. A play at Theatre 40 that David had started rehearsals for as assistant director was put on hold, with rehearsals moved to Zoom. We still hope to produce the play eventually but no dates are known. In other words, our lifestyle, like the play, was put on hold.

But we have adapted. David and Pat have both been taking lots of online classes. Pat has been taking multiple Spanish classes as well as literature classes (in English and Spanish!). David has been taking a variety of acting-related classes. We go for walks in our neighborhood every day, sometimes twice a day (when the days are longer and warmer). We eat at home a lot more, with occasional take-out meals from our favorite local restaurants. We have frequent video chats with Ben and Lisa which are always enjoyable. We have found a routine which fits us pretty well.

Speaking of Ben and Lisa, they have had a milestone of their own. They bought a house in Plano, TX and moved in a few months ago. Now that they have vacated the house in Grapevine, we are having it renovated in preparation for selling it. The work should be done shortly and the house will be going on the market within the next couple of weeks. If you know anyone who might be interested in a newly updated house in a wonderful neighborhood in Grapevine, TX, please let us know!

We had been making some plans to travel to Plano to visit Ben and Lisa for Christmas, but the pandemic here has reached historic levels and we decided to wait until a better time to make that trip. We are continuing to take all the right precautions to keep from getting sick and to prevent any possibility of us catching the virus and spreading it to others. Our health overall has been good this year and we intend to keep it that way.

We hope that all of you are staying safe and healthy, and that we all will see better days and weeks and months in 2021. Please keep in touch!

David and Pat Westbay Newsletter – 2018 recap

Holiday greetings to all! As I type this, it is December 31 and 2018 will be on its way out the door in just a few hours. This past year has held its challenges and its blessings for us; here are some of our notable news items.

We took several trips this year; some to visit our son Ben and his wife Lisa in Texas, some for vacations. See below for a photo taken while we were with Ben and Lisa over Christmas. Perhaps our biggest trip was a cruise on the Danube River during which we visited Austria, Germany, Slovakia and Hungary. We sailed with our friends from Cruise Trek and had a fabulous time. Over the course of the year we also went to a number of concerts, attended several plays, and enjoyed a healthy dose of the culture that Los Angeles has to offer. In December we celebrated our second year living in our current house in Culver City; we love it here.

Pat has been very busy with her various Spanish classes. She has averaged about four (!) classes per week and really enjoys them. Classes will be starting again once the holiday break ends. She is also still a voracious reader and keeps the book stores and libraries around here in business.

David has had plenty to keep him busy in the acting arena this year. He has taken a number of classes for commercial acting, auditioning, and improvisation. He has acted in several short films, mostly student productions. He also did a number of murder-mystery dinner theater shows. In the spring, he appeared in an episode of a popular YouTube series, “Gal Pals,” which you can view here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhzicggSPH8

Just before Christmas, he acted in a feature film / new media production which should be completed in the coming year. In June, he signed with his first agent! He is now represented by the Osbrink Agency for commercials. He has not booked any commercials yet but expects to land one any day now. He plans to continue his pursuit of acting opportunities as 2019 gets going.

We look forward to what we hope will be a year filled with joy, peace, prosperity, and harmony, for us and for all of humanity. Let’s all do our best to treat each other with compassion and kindness, in 2019 and every year.

Best wishes to everyone, and please keep in touch!

David and Pat Westbay

dpwestbay@gmail.com

Ben, Lisa, Pat and David - Christmas 2018

Holiday Newsletter 2015 from David and Pat Westbay

Hello again, friends. Can it be that another year has flown by? Considering what an eventful year 2015 has been for Pat and me, it is hard to believe that it is almost over. Below is a recap of our year to date. 

The most significant occurrences for us this past year were our losses. It actually started at the end of 2014, when Pat’s dad, Robert Morris, passed away on December 26. He had been fighting cancer for several years, and developed heart issues in the last months of 2014 which finally caught up with him. He was a wonderful father to Pat and her brother Bill, as well as husband to his wife Adele who passed in 2006, and grandfather to our son Ben. We miss him every day. We also lost my mom, Shirley Westbay, who left us on August 3, 2015.  She became ill the previous day, was admitted to the hospital and sedated to stabilize her condition, and did not recover. The doctors were unable to pinpoint the cause of death. She did not suffer, for which we are grateful. All seven of her children, plus her surviving sister, sons- and daughters-in-law, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and numerous other relatives and friends miss her loving and joyful spirit.

Our life here has stayed on a fairly even keel. Pat continues to attend her Spanish classes. I have been acting periodically, including more murder-mystery dinner shows and some background work for a couple of TV shows. I also performed for Sci-Fest LA, in their fundraiser performance of “The War of the Worlds” in January and in “The Lunchtime Show,” one of the one-act plays in the run of the festival in May. I am currently on their newly created Festival Board and am working on fundraising and promotion for the 2016 Sci-Fest LA festival. Be sure to check their website at www.sci-festla.com if you want more information.

Travel is still our favorite thing, and we took several trips this year. As usual, we went back to Grapevine to visit Ben a few times. He is still living in our old house in Grapevine and working for Fidelity Investment Services. He got a promotion in the summer and has become a very highly regarded member of his work group. One of our trips to see him was over Thanksgiving, which featured a joint family dinner with Ben’s girlfriend Lisa and her parents and brother. A wonderful time was had by all. Another trip was a cruise with our friends from Cruise Trek, this time to the Caribbean, visiting Haiti, Jamaica, and Cozumel, Mexico. I also took a short cruise which featured my favorite band, Yes, and other bands that play music in the same genre.

Since Pat’s dad’s passing, we have been spending a good bit of time settling his estate and cleaning out his house in Culver City. We have been taking that slowly, but are now very near the start of renovations on the house, after which we plan to move in. We expect the remodeling to start sometime in January, and for the work to take several months. Living in that house will put us closer to Pat’s brother Bill, whom we have been having over for dinner once a week at the Culver City house to keep up the tradition that he had with his dad these past years.

We wish you peace, harmony and joy this holiday season and in the New Year! Please keep in touch!

Sci-Fest LA 2015, and Getting Back into the Game

In a few days, Sci-Fest LA 2015 will wrap up its run with the final performance of Program B on May 31. I have had the great good fortune to be a participant in this festival, on multiple levels and in multiple roles. When I first heard about Sci-Fest in the spring of 2014, I got very excited to find out that a one-act  festival of science fiction plays would be produced right here in Los Angeles, just a few months after I had moved back here from Texas. Little did I know how involved I would get, and how Sci-Fest would inspire me to get serious again about acting and theater.

After donating some money towards their first Kickstarter campaign and helping as a volunteer to promote Sci-Fest in 2014, I was invited by co-producer and Sci-Fest mastermind David Dean Bottrell (“DDB”) to join their marketing committee for the 2015 festival. I jumped at the chance, because I attended both programs of the 2014 edition and was blown away by the stellar level of excellence in all aspects of the production. I knew that I wanted to continue working with this amazing group and contribute in some small way to the next festival. I attended committee meetings, met other supporters, and learned a lot about how a festival is organized and publicized. Along the way, I took a month of acting classes from DDB and really enjoyed that. I also volunteered to read some of the scripts that had been submitted for the 2015 festival. That was a fascinating process; I read a lot of science fiction plays about a wide range of stories, characters and settings. At least one of the plays that I passed along as a “possibility” ended up being chosen for production in the 2015 festival.

In the fall of 2014, a fundraising event was announced: a staged reading of the original 1938 radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds” as produced by the Mercury Radio Theater and directed by Orson Welles. The one-time-only performance would star a long list of well-known actors from Star Trek, the X-Files, and other sci-fi-related shows. Plus, a few very generous donors would have the opportunity to actually be on stage, in the performance, playing very small roles alongside the all-star cast.  I made the required donation to get two tickets to this can’t-miss event so my wife and I could see it. After some deep thought, however, I decided that I could not pass up the chance to take one of those donor roles. After all, what were the chances that I would ever get to act in the same play as some of my favorite actors such as Walter Koenig, Wil Wheaton, Armin Shimerman, Tim Russ, Rene Auberjonois, Michael Dorn, Linda Park, Dean Haglund, and Jason Ritter? I upgraded my original donation and secured one of the cameo roles. Rehearsing and performing with these people was one of the highlights of my acting career, at least so far. Apparently I did a reasonable job in my brief role; I think what followed in the coming months may have been partly a result of my involvement with “The War of the Worlds.”

Not long after “The War of the Worlds,” the Indiegogo campaign for Sci-Fest LA 2015 was kicked off. All of us involved in the promotion of the festival started posting countless Facebook notes and contacting everyone we could think of who could help us tell the world that this year’s festival was coming and needed plenty of financial support. As the dates of the festival drew closer, and the casting process for the plays began, DDB emailed me saying that he wanted to offer me a small role in one of the plays that had been chosen for Program A of the 2015 festival, as well as the chance to understudy a lead role in one of the plays in Program B. I was rather shocked; I assumed that the producers would recruit from the cream of the crop of Los Angeles actors, which I have not quite joined yet. I suspect that DDB asking me to be in the cast of this play stemmed from a number of factors: my support of the festival, both financial and in time and effort; my participation in “The War of the Worlds”; and my having attended his acting class. I guess he decided that he could trust me to get in front of an audience and not embarrass myself or the festival. Before he could change his mind, I accepted the offers. Soon I had a script for “The Lunchtime Show” and found that my character may not have a lot of lines, but he is very important to the story. I didn’t think of Tourist # 1 as a small part at all. Before long, we started rehearsing and I met the director and my fellow cast members. All turned out to be great people and fine artists. I would love to work with each and every one of them in the future; I hope that most of them would be willing to work with me again too. I also attended a few rehearsals of “A Billion Tuesday Mornings” for which I would understudy the role of Gerald, an autistic man who invents a device that could change the world. Another great group of people, whom I wish I had had the chance to know better.

Rehearsing and performing “The Lunchtime Show” has been a lot of work but even more fun. Besides the excellent cast and crew of our show, I also got to meet the casts and crews of the other Program A plays; all terrific people as well, who put on four incredible shows in addition to ours. But wait; that’s not all! About halfway into the run of the festival, DDB emailed me asking if I would be available for “Sci-Fest LA Radio Theatre” which was scheduled for Act II of Program B for their second set of performances. They had offered some small roles for big donors again but had not had as many takers as they had hoped. Once again, I chalk up this opportunity to having done the same thing for “The War of the Worlds” as well as my willingness to help out when asked. I accepted and will be going on in Program B for three performances during the final weekend of the festival. I have attended one rehearsal and look forward to joining the all-star cast for the performances.

Being around so many professional actors, directors, technical artists and others during Sci-Fest LA has offered me a number of lessons about the entertainment industry. I have been away from L.A. for over 20 years; I have forgotten many things about the business, and have discovered that a lot has changed in those years. I stayed active in performing while I was away, but almost exclusively in amateur productions. There is a lot that I have to learn or relearn now that I am back in a town where virtually everyone is better informed and more experienced than I am. Some of the differences that I am noticing may go against the habits that I developed in my community theater years, and I’m not sure that the changes that may seem necessary here will sit well with me. I am a bit of an old dog now, and I will have to see how well I can learn some new tricks without compromising who I am at heart. I am hoping that some of the fine folks that I have met through Sci-Fest LA will help me out now and then as I stick my toes into the waters of the L.A. show business ocean.

When I heard about Sci-Fest in 2014, I just hoped to have the chance to see their productions and tell others about them if they were good, which they most certainly were. Having become a member of the Sci-Fest LA “family,” if I can claim that privilege, has been an incredibly rewarding experience for me. I sincerely hope that Sci-Fest LA will continue for many years into the future, growing and expanding until it TAKES OVER THE UNIVERSE, BWAHAHAH!!! And I hope I can continue to be a part of it along the way.

Holiday Newsletter 2014 from David and Pat Westbay

Greetings, friends! Another year is drawing to an end, and another holiday season is upon us. It must be time to send out our news for the past 12 months or so. Read on if you want to know what we have been up to.

Back in January, we left our home of the past 23+ years in Grapevine TX to move back to Thousand Oaks CA, into the townhouse where we lived before moving to Texas and which we had been renting out. The relocation went smoothly and we got settled back into our townhouse fairly quickly. We reacquainted ourselves with Thousand Oaks and the surrounding area, discovering how much has changed and how much has stayed the same. Pat found some classes to take through the local adult school and senior center. David connected with the Los Angeles branch of a murder-mystery company that he worked with in Texas, and has performed with them a number of times this year. He also registered with a couple of companies that cast extras for films and TV shows, and he has worked as a “background” actor a couple of times. He hopes to do more acting work in the coming year. He is also volunteering on the marketing committee for Sci-Fest LA, a one-act science fiction play festival which will be produced in May of next year. Go to www.sci-fest.com for more information about that.

We also took a few trips this year. We went back to Grapevine to visit Ben, who is still living in our old house in Grapevine. He got a job as a contractor with Fidelity Investment Services back in February, and that led to a full-time permanent position with them which started in the summer. He is doing very well there and enjoying it. Our big trip was a cruise of the British Isles area in July. We had wanted to sail this itinerary for several years, and the opportunity came up for us to go with our friends from Cruise Trek, a group we have sailed with before. We visited Paris, France; the Channel islands; Cobh and Dublin, Ireland; Glasgow, Scotland; Holyhead, Wales; and Liverpool and London, England. It was a fabulous trip that lived up to or exceeded our hopes.

Another large part of our lives is visiting with and helping Pat’s dad in Culver City. We drive to his place frequently, take him out to eat, drive him to doctor’s appointments, and generally lend him a hand when he needs it. Being closer to him was one of the main reasons we moved out here, and we are glad to have the chance to spend time with him and offer him any assistance we can. We had a very nice Thanksgiving with him and Pat’s brother Bill.

We will be flying back to Grapevine near the end of the year to spend some holiday time with Ben. We don’t know everything that 2015 holds for us, but we will make it the best year we can.

We wish you peace, harmony and joy this holiday season and in the new year! Please keep in touch!

David and Pat Westbay

texas [dot] westbay [at] verizon [dot] net

We are both on Facebook too!

Sci-Fest 2014, “Evening A” – Science Fiction Lives On Stage

As some of you may have noticed, I have posted a number of items on my Facebook page and Twitter account promoting a one-act play festival called “Sci-Fest” here in Los Angeles. I first heard about the festival back in February; I think it was from one of those “Suggested Page” ads on Facebook that mentioned the Kickstarter campaign for the festival.

I have been a fan of both science fiction and live theater since I was young enough to be a junior Starfleet cadet. The idea that someone wanted to mount a festival combining two of my favorite things, and in the Los Angeles area where I had just returned after 23+ years away, was too appealing to pass up. I pledged some money to the campaign and said that I would be willing to help if the producers needed volunteers. David Dean Bottrell, one of those producers, contacted me and then put me in touch with their marketing director, Greg Hignight. Since then I have been trying to help spread the word about Sci-Fest with some Facebook and Twitter posts.

I don’t have any personal stake in the festival. I don’t have any friends involved; I’m not an “investor” since my Kickstarter pledge will not be repaid to me (nor did I expect it to be). I am just a lover of theater and science fiction, and I wanted to support this effort to bring those branches of the arts to area audiences. I honestly was not sure whether the festival, if it happened, would meet the expectations that I had for it. Last night, I had the opportunity to attend the second performance of “Evening A” of the festival (Evening B will premiere next week) to see the results of the producers’ efforts, and judge for myself.

I am very pleased to report that my expectations were exceeded, by several parsecs. Evening A consists of four short plays: “Forwarding Address” by John-Paul Nickel; “Freedom of Speech” by Adam Esquenazi Douglas; “The Ringer” by Minnesota Plates; and “Kaleidoscope” by Ray Bradbury. All four plays came off very well in every way. “Forwarding Address” is a serio-comic piece about two engaged couples and a disturbing message for them that might come from the future. “Freedom of Speech” is a twist on the one-character-on-stage device; it concerns a day-after-tomorrow criminal justice issue which might not be far from today’s reality. “The Ringer” is right out of the “Twilight Zone” with its unseen horrors lurking just outside and our characters slowly revealing the predicament they are in. “Kaleidoscope” is vintage Bradbury; a group of astronauts must face their destinies after their spaceship suffers a catastrophic accident.

Each play was impeccably performed by its respective cast. I hesitate to point out individual performances, because each play, and the production as a whole, is a true ensemble piece. The design elements, from the sets to the lighting to the sound to everything else, were right on target. There are several video screens above and around the stage which are used before the show begins, during the interludes between plays, and occasionally during the plays; the integration of these video effects truly enhanced the production rather than distracting from it. The videos were especially useful during the unavoidably lengthy set changes, providing a way to keep the audience engaged.

Science fiction and its related genres have been huge players in film and television for many years. They have not had nearly the foothold in live theater. Production challenges have probably contributed to the lack of theatrical presentations of science fiction material. But I believe that this inaugural edition of Sci-Fest proves that high-quality, thought-provoking, enjoyable productions of genre plays are indeed possible and deserve our support. I recommend that anyone who is able to do so should make the effort to attend Sci-Fest, to help make it the success it should be, and to demonstrate that science fiction belongs on the stage just as surely as any other type of production. I, for one, can’t wait until I get to see the plays in the Evening B program.

Get your tickets now before they are gone: http://www.sci-fest.com/