Lakeport >> The Soper Reese Theatre recently held a concert and awarded their first ever Jillian Billester Scholarship to a young, hardworking theatre volunteer.
Sixteen-year-old Clara Carstensen has been helping out at the theater since she was 12, taking tickets, assisting concessions and ushering. After just a short amount of time, she so impressed theatre staff she was put in charge of all the ushers. Though she was often 40 and 50 years their junior, the rest of the usher staff referred to Carstensen as their boss.
Then Carstensen showed interest in the more technical aspects of stage production and in the past year, she’s run the lights for two dance programs.
“She does whatever needs to be done. She loves being there,” said Michael Adams of the Soper Reese. “She’s just really a nice young woman that represents us really well and everybody loves her.”
So about a year and a half ago, Nancy Rhodes, who runs concessions, floated around the idea of setting aside their tips for Carstensen. Tips had previously gone into the general theatre fund. Adams said it took approximately three seconds for everyone to agree.
Not long after, Jillian Billester became ill. She wasn’t just the Executive Director of the Arts Council in the 1990s, she was the visionary behind creating a performing arts center for the county. When the owners of the theatre (then a two-room movie theater), put it up for sale, Billester hoped the council could acquire the building. She approached Jim Soper, who’d shown interest in contributing to the theatre, and asked if he would help them purchase it. Without hesitation, he gave her $300,000 and Billester embarked on her mission.
She began planning, organized volunteers, tore down the wall running through the middle of the building and hosted children’s workshops in the summer. Though it all became too big a task and Billester stepped down from the Arts Council, Adams credited her as a large force behind all that the theatre is today.
But the theatre staff felt she hadn’t been completely honored by the community. The idea of a scholarship was already percolating, so they decided to name it after Billester. Though she unfortunately passed away before the theatre awarded the scholarship, they had a chance to tell her all about it. Her husband, friends and mother-in-law all said Billester was pleased with the idea. “It was really a celebration of what she’d done for the community,” Adams said. “It was also about the recognition of Jillian [Billester] at the theatre where she had had such a big impact.”
Carstensen was the perfect person for the scholarship. She’s committed to both the community and the arts, she’s something of an artist herself, playing piano and taking dance lessons, and she’s “just a solid community member,” Adams said. “She really is just the model representative of what Jillian was about.”
And Carstensen isn’t only deeply committed to the arts. Adams described her as a hard-working farm girl, taking care of chickens, raising goats and fixing up the family truck, covering herself in grease in the process. She’s also Adam’s neighbor and it’s no surprise she makes a good one. “She’s more responsible than we are,” he said with a laugh.
The timing of the scholarship was perfect for Carstensen, who is home schooled and started taking a few college courses just last year. For the year and a half after the scholarship idea came up, the theatre managed to collect approximately $1,400 in concessions tips. At the event last month, the theatre staff awarded Carstensen $1,000.
They kept the whole thing a secret from her and ushered her on stage under the pretense of performing a piano interlude during a break between musical sets. She was excited but also extremely nervous, said Adams, because it was her first time playing solo on stage. After three songs, Carstensen tried to run off and Adams had to stop her before she got too far. The entire theatre family stepped out on stage then, as Adams handed over the scholarship.
“She’s kind of everybody’s grandchild. Everybody sort of adopted her,” he said. “So it was really a positive thing, very representative of Jillian and who she was.”
With the remaining $400, the Soper Reese set up a scholarship fund, and they’ll be putting together a committee and hopefully transforming the scholarship into something larger than just concessions money. With the help of Wilda Shock, the chairperson of Lake County Friends of Mendocino College, they’ll come up with the scholarship criteria and process.
“The number one focus will be community involvement,” Adams explained. “We need to support that and we need that to be recognized so we can get young people to come and take our places and have these good things in the community continue past us.”
The Jillian Billester Scholarship is also a way to continue to honor Billester throughout the years. “That keeps her in the limelight in perpetuity,” Adams said.
Jennifer Gruenke can be reached at 900-2019.
