Meet the Cast of Anything Goes! Justin Kautz as Lead Sailer

What is your role in this Production?
As has been repeatedly shouted, urgently whispered, threatened and otherwise emphatically communicated to me, my role in this production is quite simple: Do NOT Break the Dance Captain! The injustice of it all being I am then directed to spin, lift, flip and lead her all around the stage in a dizzying array of heart-throb, heart-break and heart-purging music... but I digress. The name is Sailor... Lead Sailor. How I came to be Lead Sailor at such a young age is either mysterious, or obviously nepotism if you notice the striking similarity between the Captain's Jaw-line and my own. When I'm not too busy singing about the aches and pains of endless chores or saluting to new orders from my patriarchal superiors, it becomes apparent that I have spent too much time at sea away from my mother: I can't help but chase after all the fair ladies on board.

What brought you out for this production?
Part I: Spend too much time behind computer screens encasing in cement the little performer in me that longs to sing and dance, to tell narratives that speak directly to the soul--cutting past daily defense mechanisms and numbing monotony.
Part II: Be rocked and shaken to self-awareness by the exhausting internal struggle against this self-made cocoon.
Part III: Buy a pick-axe and start chipping away from the outside by drastically altering my life, stepping out of engineering, stepping into roles like MCing and singing, exercising away the atrophy that set into my limbs by taking up dance again, finding a workplace that develops my stage presence and theatre abilities (Jubilation's Dinner Theatre), etc.
Part IV: Christina O'Dell, my long-time friend and starring as Reno, says "You HAVE to audition for Anything Goes!"
Part V: Fall in love with the Walterdale, the play, the directors, the people and find a sense of peace.

What is your background in theatre? 
This is my first,  the first legit Musical Theatre production I've been a part of, my first time being involved at Walterdale, my first time training under musical theatre directors, my first performing with a theatre company as a cast member, my first time hearing about Walter--he's been really kind to me so far. Both my tap shoes and script have turned up within one day of them disappearing.

But,... if I dig way back in my memory banks, I remember a time when I was a different person. I was shy, easily turned lobster-faced, would withdraw from people by reading fantasy novels. Ah, yes, Grade 8. The only year I took a semester of Drama. Haha, I remember those nerves and embarrassment like it was just yesterday.

Of course, the little performer in me has found ways to stay alive all through my adolescence with small church productions and playing trombone in various ensembles--many thanks to my Grandma Grace who called me up one day and asked "what would you say to joining me playing for an evening of ballroom dance?" That one question led to 5 years of musical development and performance alongside her in the Grandiose Duo.

Biggest Challenge?
Please refer to question #1. Not breaking Christine has proven nearly impossible. Thankfully, as far as I know she is still in one piece. (Don't tell Barb, or Jen, or Danielle, or Michael... but we've almost completely broken her tendency to lead in our dance numbers. I might lose my role.)

Though, in reality the challenge is more general. My biggest challenge so far is finding answers to the question "what could possibly go wrong?" My relationship to this play is something akin to falling in love. The last thing you want to hear is "take it slow." It just doesn't make sense! Everything is so new and wonderful. There are so many facets to the play that I'd love to be involved in. I have to re-learn and reinforce the life-giving art of restraint.

This play takes place on a ship, you have any good boating stories? 
Once a dear friend of mine told me that a rock has its own kind of consciousness. That, in fact, by not having its own subconscious and conscious fabricated constructs, but by just responding to the universe in a physical way and an atomic way, its knowledge exceeded mine. At the time, I wasn't thoroughly convinced, but a few years later I finally had my chance to find solidarity with my boulder friends. You see, it took hundreds of years of boating technology, several more decades of internal combustion engine refinement, a few decades again of fluid dynamics and footwear development before I could find myself enthusiastically swinging back and forth over the wake of a motor boat in a slalom ski. In one fateful moment (to be repeated many more times thereafter), after reaching my maximum velocity in a cut, a slight misalignment in my ski set me uncontrollably hurling over the surface of the water at about 70km/h. In those few seconds before my ski caught enough water to lever me over into a face-plant I became one with our sedimentary superiors. I helplessly skipped along the lake like a flat stone with just the right release from an experienced father's hand--bouncing once,... twice, thrice, four--five-sixseveneight times and...

SPLAT.

Thank God for life-jackets.