PANDICH ON STAGE

Palm Coast Observer
Neighbors

Thespian-turned-archeologist-turned-director David Pandich led his first stage production at Matanzas High School last week: two one-act plays called, ‘The American Dream’ and ‘The Bald Soprano.’

In the back of Matanzas High School’s Pirate Theater, in a dimly lit control booth surrounded by glowing screens and sliding knobs, 24-year-old first-time director Dave Pandich stands with his gold dress shirt untucked, his sleeves rolled up and his eyes focused fiercely on the stage.

It’s May 24, the day before his first stage production will open — a double billing of one-act shows, “The American Dream” and “The Bald Soprano” — and so he’s using this second dress rehearsal wisely, to jot down last-minute notes and absently bite his nails.

“High school kids are always better in front of an audience,” he whispers, pressing a button which sounds the “ding-dong” of a grandfather clock — a recurring mantra in “The Bald Soprano.” He shrugs: “Adrenaline.”

A firefighter, all overalls and fake ax, strolls to mid-stage and Pandich chuckles. All the other characters in the scene wear suits and dresses.

“He’s good,” Pandich whispers, motioning toward the firefighter under the lights. “Only senior in the show.”

In all, the production features one senior, one junior, five freshmen and a handful of sophomores. The show will run two consecutive nights; admission is free with the donation of canned food.

“Essentially what you’ve got here is a group so obsessed with being ‘proper,’” Pandich quietly explains, “that they’re falling apart … It’s an absurdist comedy. It’s an anti-play. There’s no climax. There’s no consistency of character, of emotion, of anything, really.”

He slides over, peering toward the action. He hits a sound cue.

“What I always find in (“The Bald Soprano”): The deeper I follow a theory, the more confused I end up getting,” he says. And that’s exactly what the characters are experiencing, he says, in their search for honesty, feeling and genuine human connection in a world strangled by rules and social mores.

Pandich spent all year considering which play to produce, and he chose these two because they seemed relatable. He refers to technology like Facebook and texting as “buffers” to real communication.

“These kids have never been without that stuff,” he says. “I can still remember not even having a cell phone.”

Sometimes, Pandich reflects, he can hardly believe high school was so long ago.

“It’s hard for me to grasp the concept that 150-plus kids see me not only as an adult but a figure of authority,” he says. “And that’s been a tough thing to come to terms with.”

In 2005, Pandich graduated from Flagler Palm Coast High School, where he was one of the school’s lead actors. He won a substantial acting scholarship to Rollins College, in Orlando, and, as a freshman, was cast in the year’s first production, a six-person show, featuring him and five seniors.

But something didn’t feel right.

“There was too much drama in the drama department,” he says. “Cliquey.” They referred to themselves as “theater people,” and he didn’t care for that.

“At the time, it was sort of a perfect storm of thought,” he says. Pandich was taking classes on social equality, taking trips to China for linguistics studies.

His second year, he dropped the scholarship and took a job in a bar. Two years later, he became an archeologist.

He never thought he’d be back in Palm Coast, directing plays of all things.

“It just got tough,” he says of his archeology job. “I was never home; I wanted to get married.”

His wife, Mandi — he points her out as “the one with the curls,” — is silhouetted dead center of the house, sitting first row from the stage. “She’s done so much,” he says. She picked out costumes from Goodwill, helped the cast construct scenery and chose the show’s color palette.

Mandi is the show’s assistant director. He met her at work, in Orlando, and they stayed together the year he set off excavating for months at a time, on lands near dammed lakes throughout the Southeast.

Pandich was hired by Matanzas to teach acting, math, anthropology and archeology. This term he taught six acting courses, on top of staying late to direct.

John Sbordone, Matanzas’ former theater director and founder of the Flagler Playhouse, led the school’s first two plays, “Voices” and “Godspell.” Now he consults, sitting in the shadows of the back of the theater, his arm stretched across the empty seat beside him.

“Teaching theater has pretty much been my return, as it were,” Pandich says. He stands cross-armed in the half-light of the back booth, taking in the stage’s panorama.

“I’m pretty much sweating bullets.”