SF Chronicle article on Barbara Nemko, Napa County Superintendent of Schools
In case you're wondering why I'm posting this, a bit of background: I ran Barbara's 1998 election campaign and adore her beyond all measure. Some part of this article is me gushing about her. Though I used to be better at the verbal expression of her fabulousness when I did it all day for months on end, my opinion of her has changed not at all since I walked door-to-door for her campaign.
Act, too
Napa County superintendent calls on Broadway star for tips on her new role
Jim Doyle, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, February 13, 2004
Barbara Nemko may not be typecast as a drama queen, but she has a knack for reinventing herself and a taste for the limelight.
As Napa County superintendent of schools, she has won two election campaigns. The ex-teacher is also an author, a tap dancer, a radio personality and a cable TV host. And if she survives opening night, she'll be able to call herself a rookie actress in a community theater production.
The wily schoolmarm hadn't done any acting since fourth-grade, when she vaguely recalls playing the role of a tree in an Arbor Day performance. But a friend urged her to try out for Neil Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs," which opens tonight at the Dreamweavers Theatre in Napa.
It may sound like amateur hour, but Nemko has brought to stage a powerful silent partner in the form of Tony Award-winning actress Elizabeth Franz, who has given her sage advice and coaching on how to avoid embarrassing herself. Even so, the virgin actress is not immune to stage fright.
"I'm putting myself out in front of the entire community in a very different way than they've seen me before," said Nemko, 59. "I probably have the same fears anyone else would have. Terrified that I'll forget my lines on stage. Terrified that I won't be believable. I feel a tremendous responsibility to the rest of the cast. They've all been in plays before and I don't want to ruin it for them."
Most of those who auditioned in December had years of acting classes and production credits. On her application, Nemko scrawled: "No training. No experience."
Randi Storm, a Napa teacher and community actress, had urged the superintendent to try out. Nemko read the play and saw the video of the 1986 film, which is loosely based on the play.
"I like new experiences and I had nothing to lose," Nemko said. "The worst thing that could happen is that I wouldn't get the part."
Three days later, she was handed the key role of Kate Jerome, the protagonist's nagging mother.
Nemko didn't exactly panic, but the show was only seven weeks away: 15 performances in a 125-seat theater at $15 a head. So she decided, like any competent administrator, to retain a consultant. She resolved to find an acting coach, but not just any coach. She sought out Franz, who received a Tony Award nomination for portraying Kate when the play opened on Broadway in 1983.
Franz went on to win a Tony for best actress in 1999 for her role as Linda Loman in playwright Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman." She lives on a 28-acre estate in Connecticut and winters in Santa Monica. Nemko found her phone number on the Internet and rang her up. Franz agreed to give the rookie some tutoring.
Nemko flew to Los Angeles last month and met with Franz for a four-hour tete-a-tete in a Santa Monica restaurant with an ocean view. Franz spoke about acting technique and the role of Kate -- and tossed in some juicy Broadway gossip. Nemko read some of Kate's lines. Franz gave her some pivotal advice.
"She talked about the importance of really becoming Kate, that every night I had to start all over to be her," said Nemko, who appears in the play wearing a housedress and apron. "She reminded me that my character is not angry. Some of the lines can sound angry. There's an unlimited resentment in some of the lines, but the anger doesn't come out until the second act.
"And it's important not to be angry all the way through. ... She's really a loving mother, even though it seems like she's always picking on her son."
When Franz started in the role, she might have displayed too much of the anger herself. The New York Times accused her of being "too strident" as the long-suffering Jewish mother. The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that she spoke "in a grating, unidentifiable accent," but applauded her performance as "the strident, often terrifying, yet sympathetic Kate." The Boston Globe criticized Franz' reliance on "loud -- very loud -- hysteria. She rages like a Jewish Lady Macbeth."
Nemko has stayed in touch with her mentor by phone. Franz has encouraged the rookie to practice her role at home and also to stand up to the director's demands. She gave Nemko, whose throat was sore, some tips on how to project her voice from her toes. She plans to fly up to see the play.
Franz, who has also appeared in Hollywood films, said of her protégé: "I'm excited for her and I know she's going to be wonderful. That's my gut feeling ... She is so much the woman. Her passion for her (Kate) is enormous .. . She speaks like an actor."
Napa has a proud tradition of public officials, trial lawyers and teachers appearing in local shows. Police Chief Dan Monez is a veteran of 10 plays at Dreamweavers, which is housed in a shopping mall on Napa's south side.
The cast of "Brighton Beach Memoirs" rehearsed four nights a week for the past seven weeks, and had a flurry of rehearsals in the week before tonight's opening.
It's a close-knit ensemble. The cast of seven has four high school students, including Coleman Drew, who stars in the role of 15-year-old Eugene Jerome, an aspiring writer and baseball player. Off stage, the players seem to adore Nemko, hugging her and calling her Mom. On stage, there's a bit more tension.
Simon's play is a budding adolescent's account of growing up in an overcrowded Brooklyn home in 1937 -- in a beachfront community that attracted European Jews and other immigrants. It's a sucker punch of a play. The first half is a heartwarming comedy with frequent allusions to sex and the Yankees. The second act, set in Depression-era America, gets downright heavy. All things considered, it's a tribute to family life.
The coming-of-age story takes place in a two-story set that's laced with family photos and heirlooms such as candlesticks, perfume holders and a baseball glove. Director Sharon Rogers asked the cast to bring items that belonged to their families.
"I think Barbara's doing a terrific job. She's just a natural at this," said Rogers, who teaches drama at Napa High School. "There are parts of the character that it's easy for her to identify with ... and it comes across very honestly on stage, which is terrific ... She walked into the first rehearsal already knowing her lines. And she goes out of her way to research. She knows her character."
Nemko has received a crash course in live theater, starting with the Shakespearean adage: "The play's the thing." Part of the magic is making believe that the pumpernickel bread at the dinner table is actually baked liver.
"This acting adventure is truly the experience of a lifetime," she said. "I've done a lot of public speaking, but this is very different. When you do public speaking, you have a few key points you want to make, but then it's extemporaneous. It depends on the audience. You can take them anywhere. I've done it for so many years that I'm not afraid of it. But being in a play, you have to say the words the way the author wrote them."
Nemko, who lives in a new two-story house in the city of Napa, wakes at 6: 30 a.m., grabs coffee and heads for her office next to Napa State Hospital. The Napa Office of Education employs 230 people and serves 20,000 students. The building's hallways are decorated with students' artwork.
She works at an oak desk, and it's a struggle to keep it tidy. "So many things happen in the course of the day," Nemko said. "The phone rings and it could be one of 52 topics. So I pull a folder for that and before I can put it back, there's something else."
On the wall is a photograph of Nemko with child psychologist Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, and another one of her with Sen. Hillary Clinton, the New York Democrat.
Nemko's 33-year-old daughter, Amy, who works as a Justice Department attorney, sent a card recently to her mom. She wrote: "You inspire me with all your new ventures. First, tap-dancing. Now this. Who knows what's next?"
The superintendent said she's not quite ready to quit her day job, move to New York, wait tables and play the boards of Broadway. "I've been in education my whole life. This is where I will remain," Nemko said. "This is what I love."
A graduate of Queens College in New York, Nemko began her teaching career in a class of second graders in Queens. She went on to teach junior high school, and also high school typing. She earned her doctorate in education at UC Berkeley. She was named Napa County's interim superintendent of schools in April 1997 when former Superintendent Ed Henderson became Napa's mayor. She won election to the superintendent post in 1998, then ran unopposed in March 2002.
"Barbara does nothing by half measures," said [the 'Stute Fish], who ran the 1998 campaign. "She has amazing amounts of energy. She puts so much of herself in her work. I think it's great that she has these things she does that are just for her. . . . A woman of many talents. Barbara is absolutely one of my heroes. She's a very giving, friendly, warm person."
Nemko draws parallels between her 9-to-5 job and the acting gig.
"In my job, sometimes I talk with students, sometimes I talk with teachers, and I have to make a personal connection," she said. "You have to make that same connection in the play. Words, no matter how good they are, without a personal connection, fall flat."
How does she like acting?
"It's very difficult. It's very time consuming, but it's very rewarding. I think I like it," Nemko said. "I've learned that having a good director is critical. . . I think the hardest thing is using your body and trying to walk the way the person would walk. And your facial expressions need to be the way the character you're playing is reacting to what's going on around her.
"My character is bossy and always busy. Her life has always been in her home. She's not an educated woman. She's constantly fussing, she's wiping, she's cleaning, she's straightening. She's busy. . . . We get into trying to walk and chew gum at the same time."
Nemko insists that she never harbored acting ambitions. "Maybe in the back of my mind, but no more than anyone else," she said. "You go to see a play and you think, 'I wonder if I could do that' -- but certainly not in a real way."
She's sober about her skills.
"I have a teacher voice, so you can probably hear me in the back row. . . . Teachers tend to be very dramatic because teaching is a lot like being on stage. In fact, you can say teachers are on stage five days a week," she said. "(But) I'm winging this. I'm not a trained actress. I think it may limit my range. It's one thing to play a part where I heard people talk like this. But I don't know if I could play an English woman."
Nemko, who grew up in Flushing, N.Y., identifies with Kate.
"In playing Kate, I feel like I'm playing my Aunt Bea," Nemko said. "She was a very giving person. She was the one the whole family depended on. My grandmother broke a leg and my Aunt Bea moved her in and took care of her. My aunt couldn't get pregnant and Aunt Bea moved her in and arranged an adoption. There are some lines that I can practically hear my Aunt Bea saying."
The troupe has brainstormed over the playwright's intentions.
"I think it was a cathartic experience for him because it was so autobiographical," Nemko said. "It's his recollection of his mother -- and his adolescent recollection is that she was always picking on him. She's kind of a nag and a scold, but at the same time, she's the backbone of the family.
"The play is about families. . . . He's saying that we may have our stresses and our resentments, but there is a tremendous love and it's that love that sustains each and every family member. That helps the children to grow up in the right way, that spurs on individual family members to achieve as much as they can. . . . There's a line in the play that sums it up: 'The world doesn't survive without families.' "
Nemko has an extensive record of public service, and a yen for placing herself in the public eye.
In the late 1980s, she and husband Marty Nemko started a radio show called "School Talk" for KALW in San Francisco. For two years, she appeared on the air every Sunday with her husband. These days, she appears just once a month.
She also co-hosted "The Nemkos" with her husband, which aired on Channel 28, a cable-access TV station in Napa. The two at first talked about education and other issues relevant to parents, then branched out into other matters, like interior decorating.
Nemko and her husband co-wrote a book titled, "How to Get Your Child a Private School Education in a Public School." She has also authored unpaid freelance articles about education and life for Napa Valley Life magazine as well as articles for educational journals. And she writes an "Ask Barb" column for the Napa Office of Education, offering parental guidance on topics like summer reading, choosing the right school and talking to children about sex.
"I have 40 years of experience in education," she said. "If I can help parents or teachers or anybody in any way, I want to be doing that. My mother used to say: 'If not you, who should be doing it?' "
For four years, she's taken tap dancing lessons at Napa Valley College. She's performed in the Napa Follies in short skirt, top hat and black fishnet stockings at the Veterans Home in Yountville.
"At my core, I'm really very shy. I don't think that most people perceive me that way, but that's the way I feel," Nemko said. "You'll never catch me hang-gliding or parachuting ... I just fell in love with the play. It's a wonderful play ... Neil Simon has a tremendous appreciation for the family ties we had, and the closeness of the family, which I'm afraid is lost today with families living so far away from each other."
Still, the superintendent seems to enjoy living in a goldfish bowl.
"I have nothing to hide," she said. "It's risk taking. It's being out there. With every venture that I've undertaken in my life, I've always been insecure. And I think that perhaps it's a good thing because it makes you work harder."
Onstage
The Dreamweavers Theatre production of Neil Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs" opens at 8 tonight. Showtimes are 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through March 7. The theater is at 1637 Imola Ave. (in the River Park Shopping Center), Napa. Tickets cost $15, $12 for students and seniors. Box office opens one hour before showtime. For reservations, call (707) 255- 5483.
E-mail Jim Doyle at jdoyle@sfchronicle.com
Act, too
Napa County superintendent calls on Broadway star for tips on her new role
Jim Doyle, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, February 13, 2004
Barbara Nemko may not be typecast as a drama queen, but she has a knack for reinventing herself and a taste for the limelight.
As Napa County superintendent of schools, she has won two election campaigns. The ex-teacher is also an author, a tap dancer, a radio personality and a cable TV host. And if she survives opening night, she'll be able to call herself a rookie actress in a community theater production.
The wily schoolmarm hadn't done any acting since fourth-grade, when she vaguely recalls playing the role of a tree in an Arbor Day performance. But a friend urged her to try out for Neil Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs," which opens tonight at the Dreamweavers Theatre in Napa.
It may sound like amateur hour, but Nemko has brought to stage a powerful silent partner in the form of Tony Award-winning actress Elizabeth Franz, who has given her sage advice and coaching on how to avoid embarrassing herself. Even so, the virgin actress is not immune to stage fright.
"I'm putting myself out in front of the entire community in a very different way than they've seen me before," said Nemko, 59. "I probably have the same fears anyone else would have. Terrified that I'll forget my lines on stage. Terrified that I won't be believable. I feel a tremendous responsibility to the rest of the cast. They've all been in plays before and I don't want to ruin it for them."
Most of those who auditioned in December had years of acting classes and production credits. On her application, Nemko scrawled: "No training. No experience."
Randi Storm, a Napa teacher and community actress, had urged the superintendent to try out. Nemko read the play and saw the video of the 1986 film, which is loosely based on the play.
"I like new experiences and I had nothing to lose," Nemko said. "The worst thing that could happen is that I wouldn't get the part."
Three days later, she was handed the key role of Kate Jerome, the protagonist's nagging mother.
Nemko didn't exactly panic, but the show was only seven weeks away: 15 performances in a 125-seat theater at $15 a head. So she decided, like any competent administrator, to retain a consultant. She resolved to find an acting coach, but not just any coach. She sought out Franz, who received a Tony Award nomination for portraying Kate when the play opened on Broadway in 1983.
Franz went on to win a Tony for best actress in 1999 for her role as Linda Loman in playwright Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman." She lives on a 28-acre estate in Connecticut and winters in Santa Monica. Nemko found her phone number on the Internet and rang her up. Franz agreed to give the rookie some tutoring.
Nemko flew to Los Angeles last month and met with Franz for a four-hour tete-a-tete in a Santa Monica restaurant with an ocean view. Franz spoke about acting technique and the role of Kate -- and tossed in some juicy Broadway gossip. Nemko read some of Kate's lines. Franz gave her some pivotal advice.
"She talked about the importance of really becoming Kate, that every night I had to start all over to be her," said Nemko, who appears in the play wearing a housedress and apron. "She reminded me that my character is not angry. Some of the lines can sound angry. There's an unlimited resentment in some of the lines, but the anger doesn't come out until the second act.
"And it's important not to be angry all the way through. ... She's really a loving mother, even though it seems like she's always picking on her son."
When Franz started in the role, she might have displayed too much of the anger herself. The New York Times accused her of being "too strident" as the long-suffering Jewish mother. The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that she spoke "in a grating, unidentifiable accent," but applauded her performance as "the strident, often terrifying, yet sympathetic Kate." The Boston Globe criticized Franz' reliance on "loud -- very loud -- hysteria. She rages like a Jewish Lady Macbeth."
Nemko has stayed in touch with her mentor by phone. Franz has encouraged the rookie to practice her role at home and also to stand up to the director's demands. She gave Nemko, whose throat was sore, some tips on how to project her voice from her toes. She plans to fly up to see the play.
Franz, who has also appeared in Hollywood films, said of her protégé: "I'm excited for her and I know she's going to be wonderful. That's my gut feeling ... She is so much the woman. Her passion for her (Kate) is enormous .. . She speaks like an actor."
Napa has a proud tradition of public officials, trial lawyers and teachers appearing in local shows. Police Chief Dan Monez is a veteran of 10 plays at Dreamweavers, which is housed in a shopping mall on Napa's south side.
The cast of "Brighton Beach Memoirs" rehearsed four nights a week for the past seven weeks, and had a flurry of rehearsals in the week before tonight's opening.
It's a close-knit ensemble. The cast of seven has four high school students, including Coleman Drew, who stars in the role of 15-year-old Eugene Jerome, an aspiring writer and baseball player. Off stage, the players seem to adore Nemko, hugging her and calling her Mom. On stage, there's a bit more tension.
Simon's play is a budding adolescent's account of growing up in an overcrowded Brooklyn home in 1937 -- in a beachfront community that attracted European Jews and other immigrants. It's a sucker punch of a play. The first half is a heartwarming comedy with frequent allusions to sex and the Yankees. The second act, set in Depression-era America, gets downright heavy. All things considered, it's a tribute to family life.
The coming-of-age story takes place in a two-story set that's laced with family photos and heirlooms such as candlesticks, perfume holders and a baseball glove. Director Sharon Rogers asked the cast to bring items that belonged to their families.
"I think Barbara's doing a terrific job. She's just a natural at this," said Rogers, who teaches drama at Napa High School. "There are parts of the character that it's easy for her to identify with ... and it comes across very honestly on stage, which is terrific ... She walked into the first rehearsal already knowing her lines. And she goes out of her way to research. She knows her character."
Nemko has received a crash course in live theater, starting with the Shakespearean adage: "The play's the thing." Part of the magic is making believe that the pumpernickel bread at the dinner table is actually baked liver.
"This acting adventure is truly the experience of a lifetime," she said. "I've done a lot of public speaking, but this is very different. When you do public speaking, you have a few key points you want to make, but then it's extemporaneous. It depends on the audience. You can take them anywhere. I've done it for so many years that I'm not afraid of it. But being in a play, you have to say the words the way the author wrote them."
Nemko, who lives in a new two-story house in the city of Napa, wakes at 6: 30 a.m., grabs coffee and heads for her office next to Napa State Hospital. The Napa Office of Education employs 230 people and serves 20,000 students. The building's hallways are decorated with students' artwork.
She works at an oak desk, and it's a struggle to keep it tidy. "So many things happen in the course of the day," Nemko said. "The phone rings and it could be one of 52 topics. So I pull a folder for that and before I can put it back, there's something else."
On the wall is a photograph of Nemko with child psychologist Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, and another one of her with Sen. Hillary Clinton, the New York Democrat.
Nemko's 33-year-old daughter, Amy, who works as a Justice Department attorney, sent a card recently to her mom. She wrote: "You inspire me with all your new ventures. First, tap-dancing. Now this. Who knows what's next?"
The superintendent said she's not quite ready to quit her day job, move to New York, wait tables and play the boards of Broadway. "I've been in education my whole life. This is where I will remain," Nemko said. "This is what I love."
A graduate of Queens College in New York, Nemko began her teaching career in a class of second graders in Queens. She went on to teach junior high school, and also high school typing. She earned her doctorate in education at UC Berkeley. She was named Napa County's interim superintendent of schools in April 1997 when former Superintendent Ed Henderson became Napa's mayor. She won election to the superintendent post in 1998, then ran unopposed in March 2002.
"Barbara does nothing by half measures," said [the 'Stute Fish], who ran the 1998 campaign. "She has amazing amounts of energy. She puts so much of herself in her work. I think it's great that she has these things she does that are just for her. . . . A woman of many talents. Barbara is absolutely one of my heroes. She's a very giving, friendly, warm person."
Nemko draws parallels between her 9-to-5 job and the acting gig.
"In my job, sometimes I talk with students, sometimes I talk with teachers, and I have to make a personal connection," she said. "You have to make that same connection in the play. Words, no matter how good they are, without a personal connection, fall flat."
How does she like acting?
"It's very difficult. It's very time consuming, but it's very rewarding. I think I like it," Nemko said. "I've learned that having a good director is critical. . . I think the hardest thing is using your body and trying to walk the way the person would walk. And your facial expressions need to be the way the character you're playing is reacting to what's going on around her.
"My character is bossy and always busy. Her life has always been in her home. She's not an educated woman. She's constantly fussing, she's wiping, she's cleaning, she's straightening. She's busy. . . . We get into trying to walk and chew gum at the same time."
Nemko insists that she never harbored acting ambitions. "Maybe in the back of my mind, but no more than anyone else," she said. "You go to see a play and you think, 'I wonder if I could do that' -- but certainly not in a real way."
She's sober about her skills.
"I have a teacher voice, so you can probably hear me in the back row. . . . Teachers tend to be very dramatic because teaching is a lot like being on stage. In fact, you can say teachers are on stage five days a week," she said. "(But) I'm winging this. I'm not a trained actress. I think it may limit my range. It's one thing to play a part where I heard people talk like this. But I don't know if I could play an English woman."
Nemko, who grew up in Flushing, N.Y., identifies with Kate.
"In playing Kate, I feel like I'm playing my Aunt Bea," Nemko said. "She was a very giving person. She was the one the whole family depended on. My grandmother broke a leg and my Aunt Bea moved her in and took care of her. My aunt couldn't get pregnant and Aunt Bea moved her in and arranged an adoption. There are some lines that I can practically hear my Aunt Bea saying."
The troupe has brainstormed over the playwright's intentions.
"I think it was a cathartic experience for him because it was so autobiographical," Nemko said. "It's his recollection of his mother -- and his adolescent recollection is that she was always picking on him. She's kind of a nag and a scold, but at the same time, she's the backbone of the family.
"The play is about families. . . . He's saying that we may have our stresses and our resentments, but there is a tremendous love and it's that love that sustains each and every family member. That helps the children to grow up in the right way, that spurs on individual family members to achieve as much as they can. . . . There's a line in the play that sums it up: 'The world doesn't survive without families.' "
Nemko has an extensive record of public service, and a yen for placing herself in the public eye.
In the late 1980s, she and husband Marty Nemko started a radio show called "School Talk" for KALW in San Francisco. For two years, she appeared on the air every Sunday with her husband. These days, she appears just once a month.
She also co-hosted "The Nemkos" with her husband, which aired on Channel 28, a cable-access TV station in Napa. The two at first talked about education and other issues relevant to parents, then branched out into other matters, like interior decorating.
Nemko and her husband co-wrote a book titled, "How to Get Your Child a Private School Education in a Public School." She has also authored unpaid freelance articles about education and life for Napa Valley Life magazine as well as articles for educational journals. And she writes an "Ask Barb" column for the Napa Office of Education, offering parental guidance on topics like summer reading, choosing the right school and talking to children about sex.
"I have 40 years of experience in education," she said. "If I can help parents or teachers or anybody in any way, I want to be doing that. My mother used to say: 'If not you, who should be doing it?' "
For four years, she's taken tap dancing lessons at Napa Valley College. She's performed in the Napa Follies in short skirt, top hat and black fishnet stockings at the Veterans Home in Yountville.
"At my core, I'm really very shy. I don't think that most people perceive me that way, but that's the way I feel," Nemko said. "You'll never catch me hang-gliding or parachuting ... I just fell in love with the play. It's a wonderful play ... Neil Simon has a tremendous appreciation for the family ties we had, and the closeness of the family, which I'm afraid is lost today with families living so far away from each other."
Still, the superintendent seems to enjoy living in a goldfish bowl.
"I have nothing to hide," she said. "It's risk taking. It's being out there. With every venture that I've undertaken in my life, I've always been insecure. And I think that perhaps it's a good thing because it makes you work harder."
Onstage
The Dreamweavers Theatre production of Neil Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs" opens at 8 tonight. Showtimes are 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through March 7. The theater is at 1637 Imola Ave. (in the River Park Shopping Center), Napa. Tickets cost $15, $12 for students and seniors. Box office opens one hour before showtime. For reservations, call (707) 255- 5483.
E-mail Jim Doyle at jdoyle@sfchronicle.com
posted by The Stute Fish at 17:46
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