Theatre is a labor of love for Nobers

30 May 2007 — It’s time to fire up the footlights and get the makeup just right. Another Center Stage Theatre production takes the stage this weekend, and Sue Nobers is in the middle of it.

That’s nothing new for this Rosewood resident, as she and her husband, Donald, have been a part of Center Stage Theatre for 26 years now.

Sue won’t be on stage Friday night when The Fantasticks opens at 8 p.m. in the Moffatt Auditorium of Wayne Community College. She is the choreographer for this production.

She also choreographed the Center Stage Theatre production of The Fantasticks in 1987, and was one of the actors in that presentation.

She still gets out on stage, though she admits she’s been in entertainment for over 50 years. “Don’t ever say I’m too old! When there’s a role that I’m really excited about, I’ll give them a run for their money.”

Sue is from the Pittsburgh area originally, and grew up in the Bedford and Sommerset area of western Pennsylvania. She later moved to Ohio, and met her husband while working at a community health center there.

Her husband is a Ph.D. and worked as a clinical psychologist.

In the spring of 1981 they moved to Goldsboro as Donald accepted a position at O’Berry Center, and later Sue began working at Cherry Hospital.

“I was reading the Goldsboro paper soon after we moved and saw a notice that they were looking for actors of all ages for The King and I. We didn’t know many people, and this would be a way for us to get to know more people, and it was a fun thing for us all to do.”

Dr. and Mrs. Nobers and their two sons, Justin and Rick, were all cast in the production.

Justin was seven at the time. A few years later when StageStruck, the young people’s theatre, was beginning, Sue and Justin were a part of that as well. Justin played Rooster in their first production, Annie, and had the role of Captain Hook in Peter Pan. “He went for the bad seed roles,” Sue says.

Justin has grown up; he’s 33 now, married, and lives in the Clayton area, working for Frito Lay. The youngest Nobers, Rick, who was a toddler in that first production, is now 28 and teaches high school business courses in Greensboro, along with coaching the wrestling and softball teams.

Sue admits that Donald’s brief stage career was mostly to support her, as he doesn’t enjoy performing on the stage the way Sue does. He is still involved, though, working with set building and helping move scenery.

Sue’s day job was at Cherry Hospital, as an occupational therapist, but she and Donald retired almost four years ago.

While both she and Donald like to travel, they spend much of their time in volunteer work across the county. She works on the WATCH mobile van that dispenses health services, is involved with Habitat for Humanity, and volunteers with Girl Scouts and Red Cross. She wished she had the time this year to help out with Relay for Life, as they have in recent years.

She and Donald work a lot with St. Vincent de Paul, a charitable arm of her church, St. Mary’s Catholic Church of Goldsboro. Recently they were helping with the postal food drive.

She’s excited about the production of The Fantasticks. The play originally opened on Broadway at the Sullivan Theatre in 1960 and ran for over 40 years, over 17,000 performances. The dialogue is very lyrical and poetic. It’s about disillusioned young lovers, and how young folk tend to look at life through rose-colored glasses until they get out on their own. It is solid, well-written, and very apropos today, with the familiar songs Try to Remember and They Were You.

Many famous actors have appeared in the production over the years, including Liza Minelli, Richard Chamberlain, Ricardo Montalban, TV weatherman Ira Joe Fisher, Bert Convey, Elliot Gould, Jerry Orbach, and Bert Lahr.

The play will run this Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., with a 3 p.m. performance on Sunday.

Sue is also serving as the treasurer, and the financial success of the play is important to the company. “We are going through a time of negative cash flow,” she admits.

During the last year Center Stage Theatre has been reaching out to the community to find a wider audience. “We have been presenting dinner theatres across the county, at country clubs or VFW halls, going to schools, hopefully reaching people who wouldn’t come out to a play but who feel comfortable going to a play in that setting.”

She also acknowledges that it has been hard on her group since the Paramount Theatre burned downtown. They are having to rent from Wayne Community College, Goldsboro High School and Dillard Middle School for facilities.

The $10 ticket goes to pay for sets, costumes and rental of the theatre. While they have to pay some of their musicians, most of the rest of the company is made up of volunteers.

She also says Center Stage Theatre has been very fortunate being in Goldsboro and near Seymour Johnson. “We have a talented group of people who come to us while they are on their tour of duty here. We also have a strong core group who have been involved in a good number of productions. We’re blessed with not only actors, but the technical necessary people. That’s what makes us a little different.”

She says often community theatres have to hire technical people to support their actors, but CST has a wide variety of talented people in those areas to make the show complete and polished.

While they are an affiliate of the Community Arts Council, and have received a number of grants and are pursuing more, they likely will be doing some fundraisers. “We aren’t going to wait for someone to give us money,” she says.

While it has to be about money some of the time, it mostly is about a labor of love for Sue and the many other volunteers. Come see their love expressed on stage this weekend at WCC.

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