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Accomplishments

• Composer, lyricist, pianist, teacher, critic, and editor are just a few of Skip's many occupations
• His musicals have been performed at Seattle Rep, NY Shakespeare Festival, Goodspeed Opera House, The WPA Theatre, Pennsylvania Stage and San Diego's Old Globe Theater
• Wrote scripts for Disney and Trinity Television
• Taught at the legendary acting school, The Neighborhood Playhouse, for nearly a decade
• His longest running credit is heading the hugely successful BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop for 20 years
• His newest musical, "The Last Starfighter," premiered October, 2005, at the Storm Theatre in New York City

Memories

My memories of Redondo High make up a long list of thank-you's. Growing up on the set of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?" as I did, Redondo High was my refuge and maybe even my salvation. I mean some of the teachers and friends I had there were people who looked a little deeper and reached out with a little extra TLC and in one case a little tough love to a sensitive and troubled kid. I thank coach Rex Hughes for asking me, a music nerd with zero athletic ability, to be manager for the basketball team. I was most likely terrible, but I had a great time doing it, and hey, we did win the league that year. I thank Mr. Wilson, the choir director, for creating so many performing opportunities for all of his students; from Stockton up north we went dotting down the continent to Cuernavaca, and even after I graduated I jetted along to Europe. Again I thank Mr. Wilson along with Mr. Fried, the drama director, for letting me write songs for the varsity shows and producing the first complete musical I ever wrote. I thank Carol Neblett for singing and acting in all of them! (I thank Carol's father Norman for helping nail my scholarship to USC.) I owe a huge debt to Mr. Hoyme, an English teacher, for teaching me to look deep in myself when I write to find my own individual emotional connection to whatever the subject matter is, so that the writing has purpose and pulses with a strong heartbeat. I even owe a debt to an honors English teacher who painfully and very personally taught me that sarcasm and humiliation are lousy teaching tools, so destructive that I vowed never to use them myself. I thank Mr. Gonzales, my French teacher, for running a classroom that was funny and demanding and supportive — my most useful lesson in how to teach. I remember November 22, 1963, walking into band to find the politically conservative Mr. Misenheimer sobbing while a radio blared that the President had just been shot. There were no red and blue states then, and the President was everyone's President and all of us grieved. I thank Mr. Misenheimer for teaching me about the beauty and discipline of music; how to practice, listen, phrase, play off others, and I thank him for caring enough to get truly angry with me when I was not doing my best. And finally, I thank my friends: Les Schamberg, a senior (singer, football player and now a Northern California rabbi) who took a scared freshman under his wing and helped him belong; Don Campeau and Deiter Wagner who laughed at me mercilessly (bu affectionately) and taught me to laugh at myself. Maureen O'Rourke, Greg Protasel and Bill Richardson who were brilliant in all they sought to learn — witty and insightful in the many things they talked about and who deigned to include me at their Algonquin table; Paul and Jimmy Walberg who often gave me a home away from home; and finally Dave Druliner, the friend I idolized — and why not? Leader, scholar, athlete, great gregarious human being (and you should see his more recent accomplishments at the California Department of Justice). I can't help wondering =why he isn't writing his memories here instead of me.