ON THE WRITE ROAD: Send in the clown

Chad Estrada was supposed to be a one-off.

Harbour Theatre was holding an event called Lounge Night at the old Raffles Inn in Prince Rupert. The show would feature music acts and a motif based on the cool, casual bars/lounges of the 50s and 60s.

I was still fairly new to the performing arts but I had always fancied myself a good singer and loved the old Sinatra and Andy Williams-style songs. My dad had been a big influence as he had his own band and was quite the crooner. So, my initial plan was to do the black-and-white suit look that was Frank Sinatra’s trademark, but a skit on Saturday Night Live changed things.

In the skit, Bill Murray was playing a hack lounge singer at an airport lounge. One of his songs was

“Star Wars, nothing but Star Wars …” sung to the movie’s theme music. I loved it and would make it my own – but I needed a name. Enter my good friend, Rod McNish.

While out at a coffee shop discussing my act and search for a name, Rod said that I kind of looked like CHIPs TV show star, Eric Estrada, and maybe I could be his brother. I had a good laugh but then thought, why not? I named him Chad and he would be the half-brother of Eric, whose family had adopted him (there’s an elaborate back-story).

The first costume was an ordinary blue suit jacket with black lapels, a white dress shirt and black bowtie, black slacks and shoes, and orange-tinted shades. The first jacket lasted me a couple of shows until a friend gave me a sparkly blue jacket that I would wear for almost 20 years.

Physically, I always had my hair greased back and, at some point, decided to have one big curl on my forehead. I had a fake mustache at first but it wouldn’t stay on (it got a big laugh one night when it was dangling off my upper lip) so I discarded it.

While Bill Murray’s character did a lot of chatting with the audience, I stuck mostly to a stand-up routine that was broken up by 2-3 songs depending on the length of the gig. I did the walk-about chatting thing for more intimate settings if the audience seemed right for it.

As the gigs got bigger, I had to not only expand my act but customize it at times to the audience, whether it be a birthday party or a business conference. I also came up with an indicator for the type of show it was going to be: the more shirt buttons that were undone, the raunchier the show. I recall the late Frank Parnell telling me one night before a show for TRICORP, “I wanna see your belly button tonight!”

The Chad show was largely successful but it didn’t always go well. My worst experience was also my best paying. It was in Kitimaat village for Haisla Days and, because I was getting paid well, I extended my act to about 40 minutes (it’s normally half of that).

After a great dinner on a beautiful sunny day in the village, my show was set to go at 7 pm. I felt good about my material but I was more nervous than usual because there was a lot of new stuff and this was my first time in Kitamaat.

It was bad right from the start.

I opened with a joke about prison and Aboriginals that was met with gasps. The girl running the sound for me laughed at first but then stopped when she saw the crowd’s reaction. I moved on, serenading an older woman in the front row. But, when I playfully sat on her lap, the woman beside her yelled “get off my aunty!” and pushed me off of her.

Oh boy.

That’s when I scanned the crowd and, this time, saw what I somehow hadn’t earlier. This was a mostly older crowd and, suddenly remembering what other villages are lik solemn Christians. The judging was written all over their scowls.

I went through the joke Rolodex in my head and realized that my show was now cut in half – at least. Needing to win them over NOW, I quickly moved into basketball which is, of course, a favorite topic of pretty much any Northcoast Aboriginal community. It is certainly much beloved in Kitamaat, which has an illustrious history in the All Native Tournament.

Of course, flattery gets you everywhere so I sang praises of Haisla hoops glory while also noting Port Simpson’s poor record, particularly in the All Native, and got some laughs. I rolled into more basketball jokes and, while I wasn’t killing it, they no longer looked pissed.

I got through that show without any further calamity then changed my mind about the overnight accommodations - especially after seeing a group of what looked like angry nephews chatting and shooting glares at me. I snapped the cheque out of my host’s hand and high-tailed it out of there.

Lesson learned. ALWAYS do your homework. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about running into any of those angry folks sometime down the road as, much to my surprise, not a lot of people recognize me as Chad.

I thought that, with just my hair slicked back and wearing tinted glasses and the flashy suit, it was easy to recognize me. Yet, there were several times friends who were seeing the act for the first time later said they didn’t even know it was me.

My favorite reveal was when I worked at the Friendship House and the Executive Director and I was talking to some of our youth program members about the upcoming Youth Conference. He told them that Chad Estrada was going to be performing and one girl said, “That guy? The one with the shiny jacket? He sucks!”

Farley laughed and nodded toward me. The kids all looked at me and, after a few seconds, it sank in. The girl put her hands over her mouth, “Oh my God …” and we had a good laugh.

Even my partner believed Chad was a real guy when she caught my act at a staff party. She was incredulous that not only would someone come all the way from Vegas (which I always said I just arrived from), but that he would be so bad. It wasn’t until a few months later when she saw me at a house party and we met for the first time that she figured it out.

One of my best shows was at Rupert’s Lester Centre, where I opened for the renowned Indigenous comedian, Don Burnstick. The All Native Tournament was in town so there was a full house.

I did about 20 minutes and killed with jokes about area village slogans and singing “Who’s Gonna Fry Bologna Tonight” to the tune of the Cars’ song, Drive. After I introduced Burnstick, he grabbed me by the elbow as I was passing him in the wing and said, with a fake scowl, “Hey, the opener’s not supposed to be that good.”

After the show, Burnstick asked if he could borrow one of my jokes and his manager asked if I would consider traveling with them as the warmup act. I thought about it but not for long, telling them over drinks that night that I had a kid and was a single dad, and well …

So, while I also got gigs at conferences in Vancouver and Kelowna, the Royal BC Museum in Victoria, and also got a call to do a month-long stint at a hotel in Vancouver, it did not become a full-time thing.

Over the past decade, Chad has been hosting The Legendary Chad Estrada Christmas Special Spectacular, a show done in the style of the old Bob Hope TV specials. It’s done at the Tom Rooney Playhouse in Rupert and sells out every time and is a highlight for many, including students whom I recruit from the high school musical to do a spoof of it.

Due to COVID and my having to withdraw from the last show for personal reasons, it has been three years since the last Chad Estrada Christmas Special Spectacular.

Lately, I have been very busy with writing, working on a podcast project, and family commitments, and I’m not sure if I can manage a show this year. Also, I’m not sure how much more Chad has left in him, and I am seriously thinking that maybe the act is at its end.

But, if this is the end, how to do it?

A huge gala with comedy, dance, special guests, and a farewell song, would be fun. I’ve always wanted to have a full band and all the bells and whistles of the Lester Centre show.

Or maybe the last show was the end. And he is already gone.

Perhaps he has left in much the way he was revealed to his first big audience at the Lester Centre; stepping out of the shadows at an audition for a talent show, unheralded, not even close to the star he thought he was ... but good enough to make people smile every time he sauntered on stage.

ON THE WRITE ROAD: Oh, lord, what a show!

After surviving Y2K, I strutted into the year 2000 with aplomb, riding high after the success of Heads and Equator Woman. Harbour Theatre was now expecting things of me, which was fine because I was bursting with ideas!

My next product was a play within a play, a story about a struggling single mom whose daughter was acting in a community play. It was titled Jesus 2000. I had a lot of support, including from my friend, Rod McNish, who had a theatre degree, plenty of experience, and was a writer himself. Rod had reviewed a one-act play draft of mine a year earlier and I asked him to give this one a look.

Rod’s first thought on Jesus 2000 was that the play within a play didn’t work and that I needed to choose one or the other. I re-read it, to make sure I agreed with him, and then chose the play within because, well, it involved Jesus and Nazis, Martians and androids, Lucifer and God, and Be’el and a sexy, dominatrix Fuhrer.

I also came up with a gimmick, a pseudonym, listing the play’s author as Ravi McTavish. As the director (complete with smoking pipe and tweed jacket), each night I introduced Jesus 2000 as a long-lost masterpiece by little-known genius playwright, McTavish. I also warned patrons that the play was so profound, such a spiritual experience that they should hold hands with the people next to them if they feel themselves starting to levitate. Half of the audience seemed to buy it.

The promotion was done differently too as I put small letter-size teaser posters out a few weeks before the actual poster. They contained no graphics, just lines, like:

God and Lucifer together again. Just try not to cry.

Jesus is back – and this time she’s hot!

Of course, a play that has Jesus in it is going to cause a bit of a stir but, thankfully, it was minimal, with the most notable reaction being a letter to the Daily News from a former resident calling it “excrement of the mind” – without having read it, of course.

In those early days, UdderFest was a happening event and we had 2-3 venues. Jesus 2000 was mounted in the space that is now occupied by Northern Health in the Ocean Centre, the same venue that hosted Heads. We had a cast of 14 and some of them were playing two characters. There was also a stage manager/lights person and me on sound.

I tried to stay as close to the source material, the heart of the story, as I could. I had several people tell me they were moved by a scene where God hugs Jesus, hinting that she will die again. Of course, it was absurd and played mostly for laughs, with Judas being an android, Be’el, Lucifer’s servant, being a reanimated, dead drug addict, and the Martians being puppets with giant paper mache heads. Everyone loved the soundtrack (mostly 70s and 80s classics), so much that I gifted a tape of it to the cast and crew members.

We had a packed midnight show on the final night of UdderFest and it was remarkable, running much longer than normal due to almost non-stop laughter from the audience. I had never seen a show in which every single gag hit, so I was quite taken aback. I turned to Diana, my lights person, with a confused look that screamed, why are they laughing at EVERYTHING?? She smiled, surprised I couldn’t figure it out. “It’s midnight,” she whispered. “They’re all high.”

I felt like an idiot. Of course. They had all gone and had some drinks, smoked some pot, and were primed for the midnight show. It was gold for an absurd comedy. So prolonged was the audience’s laughter to virtually every gag, that the cast had to hold their lines for much longer than normal and it added at least a half-hour to the show.

My favorite moment was when one of the larger members of the cast had his pants button break off, so, he was forced to hold it up with one hand throughout a scene. He actually left the stage at one point to ask if anyone backstage had a safety pin; no one did so he returned, still holding his pants up. The other players on stage couldn’t help but laugh too, one turning away from the audience to face a wall and the other holding a clipboard in front of her face to hide her laughter.

Many of the those involved, including myself, say Jesus 2000 was the most fun production they have ever been in. We really bonded, including having a potluck and party at my place to get props done, and make swords and paper mache martian heads. It was even re-mounted, with a mostly different cast, for the Zone Festival.

Any doubts or fears of failure I had as a playwright were erased with Jesus 2000. As the years went by, some plays did better than others but all were well-received. I also, along with Lyle McNish and Rich Jerstad, created Let’s Parody Productions, a troupe that specialized in customized skits-for-hire for conventions, social club events, birthdays, or retirement parties.

But writing plays and skits were just one part of my theatre experience. I also acted in plays. And I developed a character, a washed up ham. The character was supposed to be a one-off for a Lounge Night show. Little did I know …

NEXT: The Legendary Chad Estrada!

(in photos: the show’s poster, and three of my favorite Christians in the famous dance scene)

ON THE WRITE ROAD: the play's the thing!

I resisted the warbling call of theatre for several years. I had thought about writing plays for some time but I wasn’t particularly interested in acting, which is what was most in demand with the local club, Harbour Theatre. Directors were a dime a dozen in those days!

Friends, of course, played a big part in my indoctrination as I had many who were involved in the club which, then, was very active and held several shows annually. In particular, the McNish boys, Rod and Lyle, and Rich Jerstad prodded me frequently.

I finally relented when Rod McNish came to me saying he needed actors for opening skits for his 1997 one-act show, Life on Mars, which would also be going to the regional festival competition. The skit I was in, Coach Kingston Tells It Like It Is, was about 10 minutes and featured me as a hockey dad being told by his son’s coach that his son was too much of a wimp.

I recall, just before I went on stage, Rod telling me that once I was out there, I wouldn’t be able to wait to do it again. I scoffed … and I was wrong – so very wrong. Not only did I enjoy acting in a play, but I also wanted to write one. I warmed up with a skit.

One False Move was about three gangsters planning a bank robbery. One was the brains and leader, one was psychotic and eager to kill, and the other was an idiot. The title comes from the idiot, Lenny’s, inability to grasp the expression “one false move and you’re dead.”

“Well, if it’s a false move then that means they didn’t really move, did they?” Lenny asks, and it snowballs from there. The skit went through several revisions and was probably done at least a half dozen times, for birthday parties, rotary club, and special events.

With One False Move, the fuse had been lit. I proceeded to bang out a full-length play and a one-act in a year. I began writing the full-length play, Equator Woman, in the summer of 1998, and then cranked out the sci-fi comedy, Heads in ’99, for the first Udder Theatre Festival (Rupert’s fringe-style festival) before mounting Equator Woman for the fall of that year.

Art is a risk and not for the faint of heart. While I had confidence in Heads and the accompanying skit, Theremin’s Voice, which were directed by Rod McNish, I was anxious about Equator Woman as it was going to the Zone Drama Festival in Smithers and was debuting at Rupert’s Performing Arts Centre, aka the PAC (now the Lester Centre). It was also my first full-length and was more a drama than a comedy, so I once again called upon an experienced and good friend, Laura Chapin, to take the lead on the show (although I did co-direct to ensure my first baby was delivered the way I wanted it to be). Rehearsals went well and the set looked great but I was still very nervous come its debut.

Before I went to the theatre that night, I drove to the waterfront by Kwinitsa Station, where I always go in times of distress. With a sense of dread filling me, I felt like a fraud, naked, wondering: who do you think you are, that you can write a play just like that? Nobody is going to laugh. The premise is stupid. It is going to bomb. I looked out at the water and cried. Fuck. But there was no turning back, and I pulled out of the lot and went to the PAC.

To avoid scrutiny, I sat in the upper section of the theatre. There was a nice crowd, all in the main sections below. As the lights went down and the opening music came up, Laura reached over and squeezed my hand, and smiled. I exhaled. There is nothing I can do now. It is what it is.

The opening music came up as the lights went down and, in the darkness, there was a banging on a door. Then, the lights come up just after the back door of the barbershop has been opened by the irritated barber, who sees his best friend standing there. Scene One has begun.

I can’t recall the exact moment the best friend’s behavior gets the first laugh from the audience but I know that it was after that moment that I settled down. And, despite a gut-wrenching moment of searching for the next line, that seemed to last 10 minutes but was probably 20 seconds (still, a lifetime in theatre), it went well. It was one of the greatest nights of my life.

We would go on to win Best Direction, Best Set, two acting awards, and an award for original script at Festival but, somehow, not Best Production. Still, it was all I could hope for in my full-length debut.

I was a playwright. And there were a lot more stories to tell – by me, and by Ravi McTavish.