Feature: Former Jersey Boy Jake Speck Charms Instagram Followers With Parenting Story

It has been fourteen years since Jake Speck stood on the stage of The Duplex and performed his one-man show about his idol Danny Kaye, but this writer will make this promise: those of us who saw that show still haven't forgotten it. We never will because when Mr. Speck paid tribute to his hero with his self-penned cabaret, he proved to everyone in the room that he was one of the most talented young men in the business, something many would have seen, as he had plans to book I'll Take You Dreaming into clubs around the country. That never happened. I'll Take You Dreaming went onto the back burner with a pin stuck firmly in it because other people spotted his talent, too, and shortly thereafter Jake Speck became a member of the Jersey Boys family, a family in which he stayed active for three years, and a family that he is still very much a part of, remaining close to the touring and Broadway company members with whom he worked.

It is not any of Mr. Speck's show business families, though, that will be written about in this story - it is his real-life family. Oh, Jake Speck is still in show business, just not in New York City. In 2010 Mr. Speck and his wife actor-director-teacher Emily Tello Speck, moved to Tennessee, where Speck was the Founding President and Managing Director of Studio Tenn until 2017, when he became the Executive Director of the A.D. Players at The George Theater in Houston, Texas. Mr. Speck was recently named one of the fifty most admired CEOs of 2020 by the Houston Business Journal.

And today, the former (and still, sometimes) performer and current producer has captured hearts on his Instagram page @jakespecktacular because of a post regarding his 9-year-old twins (he and Tello also have a 5-year-old, Leo) and a little tiff they had while in school. The post, seen below, features a photo and this description from Speck himself:

We are doing virtual school in Poppi and Goggi's basement in Colorado this week. All week we have promised the boys cheeseburgers and milkshakes from Dairy Delite (beloved local joint) on Friday if they are good students. This morning the twins were fighting (what else is new?) and Nash finally pushed me over the edge with a comment he made, so I said, "That's is, no milkshakes tonight for either of you"! Well I might as well have said "All the puppies in the world have died and sugar has been outlawed forever". Because they immediately went into hysterical sobs. This happened moments before their math/science zoom class started. I came back downstairs 30 minutes later and found this paper airplane note they had been flying back and forth to each other during class. I'll translate...

Nash: Sorry for everything.
Noah: Me too.
Nash: You should get a milkshake.
Noah: You too. I am sorry.
Nash: I shouldn't get a milkshake. You should. Sorry for messing it up for you.
Noah: You really should get a milkshake. I am so sorry, really.

And once again, just when I am ready to throw them out the window, they do something like this. And yes, they've been given the opportunity to earn back the milkshakes. Happy Friday everyone! #nashandnoah

By now everyone who knows the Speck family knows that show business is the family business, and these boys may very well end up following in Mom and Dad's footsteps. At this point, though, this writer is thinking Dad should be taking notes for a new show, be it a club act, play, musical, or sitcom. The title has already been chosen: #nashandnoah

All photos provided by Jake Speck at the request of Broadway World Cabaret.

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