PSU Magazine Winter 1995

ooray or 0 ot of hometown gi rls and boys have run off to the big city to seek their fortunes in the bright li ght and glitter of show busine s. The ir chances of success have a lway been minuscu le. Yet for the e dreamers the excitement of creative work in the ever-expand ing world of the imagina– tion outweighs practical considerations. For a few, a commitment to that intangible eventually pays off. P U graduate and native Portlander Doug Soesbe is poised on the brink of "overnight success" in the film industry after a lifetime of ingle-min<led preparation. By next year at thi time hi first feature-length film produced by a major studio shou ld be released in European markets and on video in the United tate . It may not be 0 car time, but it' an important benchmark in the relentless upward scrabble Hollywood writers face. Soesbe earned a B.S. in theater art in 1971 and a master's degree in playwriting in 1976. His true training in drama started much earlier. At the age of 13 he had already organized a movie theater in his basement, complete with proscenium stage, Smm projector, popcorn and soft drinks for a penny, and now cones for a nickel. The sma ll -format film were silent, but Soesbe upplied the dialogue, sound 18 PSU Magaz ine effects, and mood music in synch with the action. "I always wanted to work in the movies," he say , with marked under– statement. oesbe's earl y fasc inat ion with movie cont inued through high school and into college, where he majored in theater arts becau e, he says, "It wa the closest I could come to that interest." At PSU he threw himself head long into every aspect of drama, making a lasting impression on his instructor . Theater profe or Jack Featheringill remembers Soesbe as "very ab le, an apt student, very imaginative and articulate." Featheringill directed oesbe in a number of plays, including Blithe Spirit, Little Foxes, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? "He stood out because he cou ld do a whole range of things well," says Theater Department hair William Tate. "He was one of tho 'e people who tried a lot of different things, but who, if he had his druthers, would be a novelist and screenwriter and play– wright." Tate directed Soe be in a production of Woody Allen' , farce Don't Drink the Water in the now-defunct summer stock project at annon Beach's Coaster Theater. Soesbe played a "ve ry stuffed shi rt kind of character, the junior ambassador," Tate remembers. Becau e of the play's Doug Soesbe '71, MA '76 is hitting the big time as a Hollywood screenwriter. By Valerie Brown farc ical quality, Tate thought it might be a good idea to puncture that character's pompo ity at some point in the play. Added humor came from oesbe's height, which at several inches over 6 feet i pretty tall for an actor, especially one who must play love scenes with petite actre ses. "It came out that Doug roller skated," Tate says. "The image of thi rigid character coming out on roller skates" captured his fa ncy, so he instructed Doug to work such an entrance into the play near the end. T ate himself had to come back to Portland for some reason and left the actors to do the show on their own. "Doug apparently miscalcu lated one night and came on in his roller skates and succeeded in knocking him elf out," T ate recalls ruefully. "I always felt bad about that." The embarrassing mishap didn't discourage oesbe from his goal. Besides his involvement with live theater, he also pressed on with making hi own Smm films using other PSU theater student a actors and produc– tion assistants. They were silent with musical accompan iment and, he says wryly, "very dramatic, very ambitious, very, very profound." oesbe's love for the sinister and my teriou manifested earl y. T ate remembers one effort as a