BWW Interviews: Spotlight on SPEECH & DEBATE's Trick Danneker

An up and coming actor in the Seattle area, 27-year old Trick Danneker (Patrick Francis Danneker) not only knows a lot about theater and conveying a character on stage but is also your average American guy who loves baseball, movies and Coca-Cola.  I was lucky enough to sit down with Trick and talk with him about his life, his career and his current role in The Seattle Rep's "Speech and Debate."

When did you come to Seattle?

I moved out here in the summer of 2005 I was hired to do an internship at The Children's Theatre in their drama school.   So I got the internship and I've been out here ever since.

What was your first show here in Seattle?

The first show I did was for Macho Monkey productions and it was called "Green Knight". It was directed by Shawn Belyea and actually had a pretty all-star cast now that I think back on it.  Ray Tagavilla was in it, Alicia Delmore,  Desiree Prewitt,  Melissa Brown some people that have, in the past few years, gotten to do a lot of really great stuff.  And it was great to work with Shawn. 

So what was High School like for you?  Were you kind of a loner like "Howie" in "Speech and Debate"?Trick Danneker in Speech and Debate" width="272" height="389" />

No I wouldn't say Howie and I are anything alike.  I went to a private catholic school for 13 years and I graduated in a class of 101 so I knew everybody in my class.  I never really in ran with the same click.  I played sports, I played football, I played baseball, but I wasn't a jock.  There weren't really the stereotypical groups of people in my high school.  I played football with guys who were also in the musicals with me.  We were all together and so it was kind of the above average high school experience for me. 

How has the reaction been from younger people that have come to see the show?

They seem to find it funny.  You know it's hard to say because you don't really know where they are necessarily unless they're in the front row and you can see them the whole time.  But I do see them in the rows with their parents and I do every now and again see an awkward glance from one to the other, a parent looking at the child or vice versa.  But it's great.  We hope that if there are issues that maybe parents and their  children are having trouble breaching that maybe the fact that we're discussing them onstage will help open a dialogue and it would be great to know that we aided in that kind of discussion. 

George Michael's song "Freedom" is used quite prominently in the show.  Do you have any special affinity for that song?

I do now!  I've never been a George Michael fan.  I've heard the song before.  A few years ago I did a show with Seattle Public Theater called "The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow" and at the top of act two there's sort of this montage of time passing and it all happens to the song "Saturday Night" by the Bay City Rollers and so it gets to the point where you're listening, with this show as well, and now the song is in your head and you're never gonna forget it or you think you won't.  I've long forgotten "Saturday Night's" lyrics.  I used to know all the lyrics and that's not necessarily a song you want to know all the lyrics to.  But yeah, while I'm doing the little dance, I'll find myself singing along. 

Speaking of the little dance in "Speech and Debate" were some of those moves yours?

None of them were solely mine.  We came up with them in conjunction with the choreographer whose name is Diana Cardiff and she worked with us all specifically on our own solo moments when we're actually disrobing to say "OK what do you think were the kind of things that you would do?"  So really the only part that's really me is I would think "I'm gonna be a little shy here and then burst out". 

What was the first show you ever saw?

I don't remember specifically because I was one of the lucky kids who basically grew up in theatre.  My father's a technical director at university in southeastern Minnesota and he has been taking me to theatre,  my brother and I, ever since we were very, very little.  My parents met doing theatre.  I remember seeing "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" at his university when I was probably five.   They took me to ballet and opera and things so I was pretty cultured.

What is your dream role?

Jamie in "The Last Five Years", a musical by Jason Robert Brown.  That is something I don't know that I could do it but I'd love to.  Romeo maybe.  Although I feel  I've had my opportunity play Romeo and I feel like maybe that's passed.  Someday I'd like to play Katurian in "The Pillowman".  I love Martin McDonagh.  It has layers upon layers.  I love that play.

What was your most embarrassing or frightening moment in a play?

When I was a junior in high school I was playing Prince Dauntless in "Once Upon a Matress" and there's a scene in which Dauntless is teaching Winnifred the history of the Kingdom and he's supposed to be interrupted by a Lady Larken who's dressed as a pageboy.  So I'm in the middle of this story and I stop and I look over and there's no one there.  And the actress playing Winnifred stopped and looked over and said, "tell me more".  And for the next what felt like 10 minutes but was probably only like 35 seconds I had to riff on the history of this kingdom.  I went through things about slavery and overthrowing  governments.   And probably some sort of thing I pulled from a storyline from Mario Brothers of something like evil Kings and saving Princesses and all sorts of weird things. And I could hear people clamoring, running off stage to find the actress who played Lady Larken.  And it was the most frightening thing I'd ever experienced and it was also one of the coolest things, because I was like, "I'm not bad at Improv, I can think of my feet."   And as soon as I got off stage everyone who's in the cast was there waiting and patting me on the back as they all gathered in the wings to watch the train wreck.

Who's been your favorite person you've worked with?

Renata Friedman.  She played Eurydice in "Eurydice" at ACT and she has become one of my best friends and is a very giving actress.  Tim Hyland was also in that show and was very great to work with.  He taught me a lot.  MJ Sieber is a lot of fun to work with.  We did a show together and he was always making me laugh.

What was the first show you ever did, ever?

"The Way of the Cross" in first grade.  I played Jesus and I carried a tiny little wooden cross.  Some of the kids in Sister Mary Beth's first grade class played the characters and they were in costumes and they would do the little vignettes and I played Jesus and the other half of the class would read what was going on like, "station number one, Pontius Pilot condemns..."  So I only had a memorize blocking and no text.  And then I did "A Christmas Carol" a year later.  I played Tiny Tim at Winona State University where my dad is the technical director.  I remember at the audition there weren't many other kids there auditioning for it and one of the only things the director told me was, "just use your outdoor voice."  I did and it was louder than the other kids so maybe that's why I got it.  Or maybe she saw something in me.  It's actually something that I use nowadays if I'm ever working with kids and coaching them for any reason I say, "Just use your outdoor voice so people can hear you."

What is the "Zen" thing you do to relax?

I don't get keyed up very often.  If I ever do I just crack open a Coca-Cola and I sit in my bed and I either read or I watch a movie or watch TV.  I just take a moment to relax and forget about what it was that was winding me up.

Everyone has something they geek out about what's your "geekdom"?

I feel like, anybody who knows anything about me knows that I love theater, I love baseball and I love movies.  I could talk about movies forever.  Last year in 2009 I saw 201 movies.  Now some I had seen before, they weren't all in the theatre.   They weren't all new.  For the first time ever I saw "Citizen Kane" and "Cool Hand Luke".   I saw some great movies and some really bad movies too.  It was just "I'm gonna see how many movies I can watch."  And I set a goal of 200 and I watched 201..  So I think I may not know a lot about film but I know a lot about movies and I've seen a lot of movies.  So I can pretty much geek out about any movie anybody wants to talk about.

If you'd like to catch Trick on stage, his current show, "Speech and Debate" performs at the Seattle Repertory Theatre through February 21st.  For tickets or information contact the Rep box office at 206-443-2222 or visit them online at www.seattlerep.org.

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