Primary Producer

Leslie Nichols

Former Co-Artistic Directors, Bill Lucking and Dana Elcar, began exploring the concept of developing a live theater in Santa Paula that became Santa Paula Theater Center in 1985.  Both were theater trained and working in television and film in Hollywood, but raising families here in Santa Paula.  They began looking to see if there was community interest by offering Acting Workshops in the Presbyterian Church basement,  Leslie Nichols attended the second workshop and was immediately captivated.  She had taken drama growing up, and was content with being a theater goer, but had never seriously contemplated being actively involved on stage. At the same time it became clear that there was much enthusiasm for beginning a theater both from the performing community and from financial supporters.
 
Forming a friendship with Marianne Elcar, Theater Manager at the time, Leslie not only was sharpening her acting skills, but learning to produce.  The two produced the beginning basement offerings, THE ZOO STORY and CHILDHOOD.  By 1986, she was onstage in her first production there, GOING TO SEE THE ELEPHANT.
 
Soon, it was clear to her that she was stage struck and this was to be her side vocation for however long they’d let her hang about.  So that desire turned out to be 40 plus years.  Leslie has produced or co-produced most of the shows on the Main Stage of SPTC and, although, retired from performing now, she had the privilege in acting in 30 or so Santa Paula Theater Center productions on the Main Stage and Backstage at the Santa Paula Theater Center. If having to name a favorite show or role she played, it was Mrs. Antrobus in THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH by Thornton Wilder.  A mad play in three acts telling the history of the world by a terrific playwright with the appearance of dinosaurs, fortune tellers, and a World War.  What actress could ask for more!