 Hi, welcome to Think Tech. We are raising public awareness on technology, energy, diversity, and globalism. This show is center stage. I am your host, Donna Blanchard, proud managing director of Kumakuhua Theater. We are coming to you live from Pioneer Plaza in the heart of downtown Honolulu, very near Kumakuhua Theater. My special guest of the show today is Wilka Hele, who is also the office manager, an actor, and a director at Kumakuhua Theater. You may not know this, he's also an actor at Awlani, and we're going to talk about it in just a moment. But first of all, I'd like to say I did have another guest scheduled to be on the show. If you're looking for him, I'm very sorry he's not here, and I hope he's okay. I didn't hear anything from him. So I hope that everything is all right, and I'm really grateful for Wil being here today. Thank you. Hi. You're welcome. Thanks for coming over and doing this. And I really, yeah, I hope that everything is okay, and if someone is tuning in specifically to see him, I hope they stay and enjoy the conversation. Yeah. Let's talk for just a moment about what is going on in the political world right now, because after we leave here, we're going to go back and watch the debate. Once again, I posted something on my Facebook page that I didn't think was terribly incendiary, but it turned into a bit of a maelstrom on my page. Are you posting anything political? How do you feel about that? I am not posting anything political. I phase over those that do. If they're for one side or the other, I don't want to hear it anymore. I just want to make my own decisions. I don't really think there's anyone undecided at this point. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think so. It just seems super polarizing, and yeah, maybe I should stop posting stuff like that. No, but you post, it's not blatantly political, you know? Well, you didn't see the one I posted. Oh, okay, maybe not. But usually it makes you think, you know, when I read your stuff, it goes, you know, you think like, hmm, yeah, okay, whatever. Well, that's good to hear. That's good to hear. Zuri just asked why I post. I just outed you, Zuri. I post those things on Facebook because I'll read something that will ring a bell and I'll think, oh, either why didn't I think of that, or oh, I wish I would have said that. And I know for certain, you know, I did a news program here on Think Tech for, you know, five mornings a week for almost a year. I spent a lot of time reading about what is going on in the news, and if I learned anything doing that is that you do not state anything as fact unless you have read it or listened to it or have seen it or been there. There have to be at least three touches before you say, yes, I am going to put my name behind it. That's how I felt about it anyway. And that's how I feel about my Facebook page. And also, there's always going to be someone who can say, oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, but if you don't have the facts to back it up. I think we kind of learned that in news writing in the senior year in high school, you know, you can't say anything unless you have the facts, you know, and our newspaper is supposed to be, what do you say, not on one side or the other, right? They're supposed to be open to all opinions. You have to put your name behind it, whether it's on Facebook or Twitter or, you know, in The New York Times, then you better make sure. There were a lot of times when I would get up in the morning and I'd read a headline and think, oh, I want to talk about that today. But I would do my research and realize, oh, that's not the story at all. It would have been more interesting if it was the first headline, but it's very rarely as cut and dried as all that. Yeah. I remember those mornings when you used to do the news. We had a little newsroom of our own back at the office. It was really, yeah. It was intense. It was intense. It was intense. It was five days a week. And it was, you know, getting your news and finding your research and finding your pictures and then how to pronounce all these Middle Eastern names correctly. Mahumaru Abu Jhabi. I don't know if that I had to practice a lot. Oh, that's just my stage name. Okay. Well, that's, you know, that's a really nice segue into what I would like to talk about with you today, which I always enjoy our conversations anyway, but I'm, even when I don't direct them, but we're going to, I'd like to talk about as actors the situations that we very often find ourselves in that are not necessarily what we thought of when we were younger and said, I want to be an actor when I grow up. And doing the news is one of them. Doing this show is another one of them. Managing a theater. Managing the office of a theater and a box office. So let's focus on that. And we'll also talk about Alani. Let's start with Alani because you are an actor. Consider an actor there? I am, gosh, there's so many names. It's cast member. I am a cast member in the entertainment department as a resort performer. Wow. And you are one of the uncles at Alani. I am, yes, I am an uncle. I am a storyteller. Moalelo storyteller. So you, people can find you at the park telling stories, playing the ukulele and singing, sometimes teaching. Yes, we are at the resort. We do strolls around the resort. We see our guests and we talk story with them. We do storytelling down at our circle of a light willow, which is our little fire pit down there. And usually we do it four times a day. And the story times are announced on the daily newsletter that is printed for the guest. And they can come down and hear a story. And let's see, we also do ukulele classes. We do, you know, basically we lend a very familial ambience to the resort. Yeah. Do you feel like you're acting when you're telling those stories? There is a, there is a part that I have to go to, to get those stories, to express those stories, I guess. So I guess you would say it was acting. I'm not, the way I would tell stories is not the way that I would tell stories, which is my name at the resort. Because I have to relate to the guests and, you know, where they come from. I have to realize, I have to show them that this is another side of our islands. Sure. You know, our legends and our stories. So yeah, I do have to put on a certain kind of different persona as a storyteller. You're tapping into your... Yeah, and tapping into the actor and because there are different uncles there because we have to cover all the shifts and all of us are different. All of us tells a story a different way. And so I think I'm more theatrical than the others because of my background. Oh, okay. Okay, so it is acting in a way. I feel like there is a persona, I suppose there's a persona that I have here that I don't necessarily have when we go back to the office, but part of that is just, you know, doing the job. We're going to keep things going and I get to ask a lot of questions. So it's a little something different. It's not quite, you know, it's nothing like studying a script and developing a character and all of the work that goes into acting that is, was foremost my primary passion, although I love doing this. I loved doing the news. I love doing... Yeah, and you kind of stumbled into it and you found out that you liked it. Like, whoa, this is kind of cool. Yeah, I think, I don't know. Yeah, because it was just a piece of... There are things that I've done that it was just a piece of theater. That's what got me in because we're obsessed with theater, right? You're obsessed with theater. I know this because you work at a theater, you work at El Lani on the weekends and you very often are in our shows and or directing and assistant directing shows. Yeah. Stage managing. Yeah. Why do you do that? And I'm reviewing. And now you're reviewing shows. Holy cow. Watch out. Why do you do that? Why do I do it? Why do you do all of that? And even though sometimes your boss says, well, you're getting in really deep here. You're going to want to break. Yeah. But you do it anyway. Why? I do do it anyway. I don't know. I guess because I do like it and I think that if I don't do it, then I might not get done. Oh. Or sometimes it's to feed my own need to have art in my life. Yeah. I was telling John, my partner, that he also works at El Lani. So he works eight hours a day, five days a week. And he's an entertainment too. So it's a certain type of a job per se. It's still kind of in the arts, but not really. Because he's doing the same thing all the time. So I said, you need to feed your art side. Do whatever you need to do. Go paint, do drawing, do whatever it is. Take a dance class, but feed your art side because it gets hungry. Your art side gets hungry. It's going to tell you, I need to do something. Yeah. And sometimes it doesn't say. I feel like sometimes it doesn't say that clearly. But then I get involved in a show. I wrote some poetry recently because of a contest. And I was shocked at what came out of me and realized, wow, I really needed that. Or get involved in something as a brief commitment as the one minute play festival that we did. That literally that was like three or four rehearsals and then two nights of shows and you're done. But I realized, oh, I feel so much better doing that. It releases your art side. Your art side has to get out. Do you think that everyone has that and some people just never really tap into it? I think so. We have to do some things. I think some people, like that karaoke craze in Japan, Japanese people, they work, work, work, work, and then they release. They go out, they get inebriated and they sing. Some people are comedians. They have to laugh. Some people just go clubbing and they dance. There's always left brain, right brain kind of stuff going on. And I think you have to balance it. So even though we work in the arts, it's still the business side. And it's stuff we have to do. We can't express ourselves as we want to freely. So that's why we do shows. That's why we do stage managing. That's why we do readings. It's just to exercise that muscle. And I was involved in a reading last weekend with a group of people. And it was five hours this reading. What were you reading, Nicholas Nicolby? We were reading The Boy. Or as I'm sorry, Boy by Anna Ziegler. And Jim Mino is going to direct. And he's directing at a tag. It's going to be the 2017 season. And he's getting like a group of actors. And he's having separate readings throughout the year. And so I was involved in this one. It was great. Just to do that. Okay, hold on for just a second. We're going to go to a break. We'll come right back. Please stay put. We'll be right back with center stage. Aloha, everyone. I hope you've been watching Think Tech Hawaii. But I'm here to invite you to watch me on Viva Hawaii every Monday at 3 p.m. I'm waiting for you. Mahalo. Aloha! How you doing? It's me, Angus MacTek. Wishing you a welcome and join us to see us on Hibachi Talk on Think Tech Hawaii. Join my co-hosts. Got to know the techs out and enter the security guy every Friday from 1,300 to 1,345. We look forward to see you. We'll talk tech and we'll have some wee bit of fun. And remember, let your wing gang free. We're area B. Aloha! Aloha. My name is Danelia, D-A-N-E-L-I-A. And I'm the other half of the duo, John Newman. Welcome. We are co-hosts of a show called Keys to Success, which is live on the Think Tech Live Network series weekly on Thursdays at 11 a.m. We're looking forward to seeing you then. Aloha! White girls, they can't work with anything. This is Center Stage on the Think Tech Hawaii digital network. If you would like to join in the conversation, you may do so. You can tweet us live, if you're watching the show live, at Think Tech H-I. If you would ever like to join us in the audience, which would also be live, you may do so. You may do so. Just email Jay at thinktechhawaii.com. That's J-A-Y. And he will hook you up. Also, if you... I'm sorry. Oh, thanks. Sorry. My hair was on my mic. I didn't hear it there. Also, if you or someone you know really should be on this show, someone who'd like to talk about the process of art, why we do what we do and how we do it, then please tweet me. It's all about Donna. It's all about Donna. Okay, back to Wilka Hele. Who is many things at Kumakuhou Theater? I was just thinking how that looked. I'm sorry. Oh, when I... She was listening in her earpiece, people. I have been there a few. Overlord is in my ear. Yeah, I forget sometimes that everybody doesn't have a little voice in their ear. I told you my therapist told me I should talk to myself more often now. And I wonder... That's a whole other show. Okay, so just being a part of a reading is a form of expression. That is a form of theatrical expression that I don't... I have spent, you know, we're on like three and a half years of this show. And my question always is why? Why do you do it? And some people can talk about it really, really easily. Some people it's like herding cats, trying to get them to talk about that because so few of us can really define it. I feel the same way, too. Yeah, but you need to do it. You need to do it. You have to exercise that. Do you know anyone who does not seem to have an artistic outlet that they exercise? No, I don't know anybody like that. I think everybody does something, you know, even if it's reading. Can reading be an artistic outlet? Well, it's something to exercise that side of them that's not what they do on a daily basis. They get some out of the office. So they read. It takes them out of their world, out of their reality for a little while, yeah? And it puts them into another reality. I know people that just read, you know. They work, work, work, work, and they go home and they read. They have libraries, volumes. I suppose watching theater or film or reading is a way of engaging in an art, but not a creative process. Right, yeah. It's more cerebral. It's more cerebral, yeah. I have a nephew, my darling nephew, Noah, is a doctor, and he probably wouldn't say that he expresses himself through art. That was the one class in, like, his entire life that he didn't score all thumbs-ups in. But he refinished there, but he took a very plain, unfinished basement and turned it into, like, a nightclub. I mean, the way he thought about the lighting and ran the wires and put in the fireplace and the, you know, projection TV, all of that. That is part of the creative process. Yeah, that's creative. So let's, if we could talk a little bit more about, so we're talking about why we do what we do. I've always had this kind of fascination with the behind-the-scenes of, like, you know, theme parks when I was a kid. In Chicago, we had Great America. It became Six Flags, Great America, and Kings Island over in Ohio we used to go to sometimes. You know what I'm talking about with theme parks. So there's shows you can go see. There's roller coasters you can ride. There's kitty things that you do and food and all of that. And one time I had to go to the bathroom and I took a wrong turn and I ended up behind the scenes and it was shocking to me because you really are transported into a different world. When you're in a park or a resort that does it right, it does transport you into a different world. And I went, got in behind the scenes and was like, these people are just like me, which I didn't take comfort in at the moment. They're breaking the magic. Yeah. There are probably some Disney secrets you're not supposed to share, but can we talk a little bit about the Disney process? Because they really score big points when it comes to taking those castmates and instilling in them an instinct of the show. Yeah? Is that accurate? Yes. How do they go about doing that? It's everything is treated as a big theater, let me say. When we go out from backstage, as soon as we get out of backstage, we are entering onstage. So it doesn't matter where you are in the resort, as long as you're coming offstage and entering onstage, you are on from the very first step. And do they encourage you to have this public persona that is? They encourage you to, like for me, I'm sorry, for me, I am Uncle, so I am a warm, hospitable caretaker, if you will, of the resort and very welcoming and just share the aloha spirit with everybody. That's kind of how you are naturally. I think that's why I was hired. At Disney, you don't have bad days. Sometimes it rains and you can't go out and do your thing. No, I mean you personally have those days when you're not always welcoming. Yeah. Never to customers. Yeah, I've never had one of those days yet. Do you think that what you are doing there is improving your work as an actor? Is it feeding your creative spirit somehow? In the storytelling part, it does, because then I get to see how I affect the patrons. If by telling them my stories, they are responsive, receptive. They come back to me after the stories and they thank me for sharing that story with them. They get their families and they take a picture with Uncle by the fire pit. All that kind of stuff. We have some interactive things. There's one story that I tell that I do a little mele, I sing, and then they respond a little mele back and they do a little hula with the mele. They all do it. It's always fun for me to see how many of them are going to do it and how many of them are just too shy. So I tell them, here, right now, in this moment, I say, we are all family. I say, because we're all here together, there's never going to be another moment that we're not all going to be together here, now, in this space. So this is your family. Don't be ashamed. It's cool. We're all here together. And when we start off with a song, it's like, okay, so here's the campfire and we're all singing a song. And I say, okay, go. And then it's like, what? I can hear you guys. I hear you breathing. I don't hear anything. And then they all laugh and then they all, second time around, they're all louder and louder and louder. That's kind of cool. It's kind of cool from my side. Just to get them to where I need them to be. But it's a whole, it is theater. It's a whole different kind of theater to have that level of, because you can change, you also have license to change based on their reactions. You don't have set lines that you're saying. The story is more or less. But yeah, we can go off script as far as relating to our resort guests and their families. And they're so cute. And they're from everywhere. And sometimes it's their first time and they're all like, oh my gosh, we're so happy to be here. It's our first time. And they just fall in love with the resort. They fall in love with that side of the island. And yeah, they go everywhere. They go wikiki. They go to outer islands and stuff. And the kids are always cute. Are they asking where is Mickey? No, because they see a lot of them. They see a lot of the friends, yeah. Mickey's on vacation with Minnie. Donald and Daisy are there also. Pluto came over. Goofy. Chippendale. Chippendale are there. Yeah, we're also going to get Moana. Oh yeah. That's a whole, can we talk, we just have a little bit, I know I don't want to get off the topic. I only have two minutes. Wow, that's fast. Yeah, the Halloween costume for Moana. Can you give me your, you know the uproar about that? It's kind of quieted down now. You mean for Maui? Yes, for Maui. So you are Kanaka Maui, how do you feel about it? I did not think it was offensive in any way. Sorry guys. It wasn't Hawaiian. It was, if anything, it was Polynesian. But if anything else, it was someone's imagination. It was a cartoon basically, it was an animation. It was somebody's imagination. And they put that together and that's what they came up with. And it was targeted for kids, right? Because that's what cartoons are. And kids at heart. And it was just, it was a costume. It was a costume. It was a costume. I think there's some people who were offended by the idea of putting on brown skin. It was akin to black face. And also the use of the cultural tattoos on it. But it wasn't, were those cultural tattoos or was it somebody's take on a cultural tattoo? You know what I mean? I mean if you go to any one of the Pacific cultures, will you find those tattoos? Probably not. I don't know. And I don't want to thank you for your take on that. I certainly don't want to offend anyone if someone is upset by that. I just thought, but it's somebody's imagination concept of what it is. He didn't say, oh look, here's a Hawaiian man, let's just put it on a costume. Thank you. I got to wrap up. Thank you very much for being here. Let's go watch the debate, everybody. Thank you for being here. There's a few people in the studio I'd like to thank. Our floor manager, Rich Prapis, who's right over there. Hey Rich! There's studio overlords, Zuri Bender, who is in my ear. And Jay Fidel, who somehow manages to put all of this together. Thank you and we will see you, I won't be here next week. Jay Fidel will be here hosting center stage next week. We'll see you then. Bye.