WST's Technical Director Wilhelmi prefers backstage

In the summer of 1995, I worked a three month internship at The Warroad Pioneer, which I'm sorry to say has since ceased operation. This was the first professional newspaper that I worked for in my career, and it turned out to be a wonderful experience. I had only worked at Bemidji State University's newspaper for about a year and half before landing the internship. At The Pioneer I gained experience in sports, feature, beat and government reporting. I designed pages, took and developed photographs and was responsible for community relations. The best part is that I remain friends with the owners nearly 30 years later.

July 4, 1995

By Devlyn Brooks

The audience usually isn't fully aware of his work. Most of the time they don't notice the painstaking care put into each particular spotlight focused for the maximum lighting effect; the amount of painting and carpentry that went into each wall of the set; or even the quality of sound that accompanies a production.

Most of the time they don't notice, but David Wilhelmi, technical director for Warroad Summer Theatre, said that the applause an audience gives when they do notice is what keeps him doing his job.

"Flowers for Algernon" was Wilhelmi's fourth WST production as technical director. He said what keeps him coming back to WST is that it is "advanced enough that you can get some really good theater, but it is small enough that you don't have the egos professionals have."

Wilhelmi is a citizen of Red Bluff, California, where he works as a technical director for the Red Bluff Union High School Performing Arts Department. He said that he is hired on a show-to-show basis to "help the kids put on a professional production."

Much of his last 10 years has been spent trying to help his father rebuild the performing arts department in which he presently works. At the time his father acquired the teaching position at the school, the former teacher had become "burned out," Wilhelmi said, so the program was in a shambles.

The school band had about 20 people in it, and the choir had about 15. He said that there currently are six classes of dance, two bands, two choirs and the school puts on five mainstage plays a year. It is a great feeling, he said, knowing that he has been a part of the rebuilding process. "Young people with new ideas are so fun to work with," he said.

His parents gave him his first taste in theater when he lived in Bismarck, North Dakota. They had started a business named Backstage Incorporated that provided technical services for people putting on shows. Wilhelmi said they said they did everything from set up microphones for speakers and even provided such minor things as actors performing skits.

One time he got work with using a spotlight when a "big name Christian singer" came to Bismarck. He said that theater has been in his blood ever since. He also said that for his first professional acting gig he played the part of "C3PO" in a play production of the movie "Star Wars."

In California, he became involved in theater by helping his dad in the theater at the high school, even as a student.

After high school he went to a college near his hometown. He worked in some shows during college, and still would return home to help out his father's performing arts department.

Since then he has done some professional technical directing for an illusionist named Dustin Coupe'. In the course of working with the illusionist, Wilhelmi said that he got to work with the licensed Walt Disney pyrotechnics. "That was great," he said. The director of the show he worked with had been part of the crew who put on the pyrotechnics show during this past Super Bowl's halftime.

The story of Wilhelmi's arrival in Warroad is a roundabout one.

His grandfather passed away two years ago, and his father traveled to Devils Lake, North Dakota, for the funeral. Jim Provance of Warroad, who was involved with WST, is a first cousin to Wilhelmi's dad, and he also attended the funeral. Wilhelmi then found out about the job through Provance and came up here for last summer's theater season.

He said he came back this season because he had developed some friendships with different people involved with WST, and he enjoyed the fact that everybody got along. He said that he doesn't the political jockeying common in bigger theaters so he can avoid it. And the people involved aren't professionals so they don't "stab each other in the back."

"They (WST) need help," he said, "and I make money doing what I love to do."

Working for WST is a "big ego boost" for him, he said, because people tell him he did a great job. He said he needs this because he is his worst critic. "I'm a perfectionist," he said.

"Last year I told people that I was going to need an extra seat on the plan when I went home for my ego," he said.

The set that he worked on for the play "Flowers for Algernon" was one of his more difficult ones he said. That is because there were 40 different scenes and a set change with each. He said that he worked about 10 hours a day for two weeks to construct the set.

Another set that he is proud of is one that he constructed for the high school he works at. It involved an 18-foot boat that simulated the rocking motion of the ocean. "The director made a comment about how it would be nice to have the actors swaying," Wilhelmi said. "I pushed until I finally succeeded in making one."

Wilhelmi is optimistic about the future of the performing arts though. "It's still alive," he said. "It's always there. I don't think live theater will ever disappear."