E.J. Subkoviak

Professional actor

B.S., Theater Arts, Minnesota State University; Mankato

I am an actor working professionally in the Twin Cities, having appeared at Park Square Theater, The History Theater, Jungle Theater, and other venues, as well as some film and on-camera projects.

When I was at JMM, I mostly did some acting in the plays and musicals: "Arsenic and Old Lace" (1985), "You Can't Take it With You" (1986), "Our Town" and "Babes in Arms" (1987), and "The Crucible", "Jesus Christ Superstar", and a series of one-acts (1988), one of which I wrote. I also worked on stage crew on a couple shows ("The Glass Menagerie" and "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" in 1986). Sharon Glasrud was the drama director at the time.

Obviously having worked on all these productions helped solidify my choice to pursue theater arts further. It is also where I made my closest friends, some of whom I am still close with to this day, and many others who I am re-connected with (thanks to social media).

While the musicals were produced in the school auditorium, the stage plays were done in a large red-carpeted room with a small stage space (used for both performing and teaching/lecturing) which came to be named the Red Room Theater.

Things I'll never forget:
Rehearsing after school from 3:30 to 9:00 or 10:00 PM, with a dinner break in the middle in which someone would make a run to Rocky Rococo's for pizza. (My favorite.) (I remember Coca-Cola just came out with their "New Coke" recipe in the spring of 1985, and one of my friends taking a sip, saying, in a very upper-crust fashion, "I don't like the New Coke." New Coke disappeared not long thereafter.)

"Backstage" for the Red Room Theater were the classrooms that lived right behind it. One classroom became the boys' room, and another the girls'. It was there I remember my first experience with stage makeup - the proverbial "smell of the greasepaint".

Nowadays musical performers wear small microphones that hook over the ear and are often literally taped to their face. (At least until we sweat them off.) Back then, we almost always had to sing into a hand-held microphone attached to a long cord. When I worked sound crew for "Joseph", I sat in the front row and was in charge of dealing with the microphones that were arranged at the front of the stage, often handing them to the performers before their numbers began.

We live and breathe the arts, often in ways we don't even realize. It's obvious we see it on the shows we "binge" or "stream", which became very prevalent over the last year during our quarantining.

But in almost everything we use in our everyday life is thanks to an artist's design: The clothes we wear. The food we eat. The beds we sleep in. The houses we live in and the buildings we work in.

And even those who don't end up working in a field that might be labeled "artistic", the very notion of creativity is a benefit to any job. Safe to say it's creative minds everywhere we have to thank for so many things - vaccines, for instance...? Arts programs nurture this creativity.