For his directorial finale for the Ojai Art Center Theater Tom Eubanks chose “Family Furniture,” what he calls, “A story of renewal.” Ojai ACT in a state of renewal themselves, stages this, their second in-person show of 2021, June 25 through July 18.
The New York Times called “Family Furniture” by A.R. Gurney “…a tender, sepia-toned play about a traumatic passage in the lives of a tight-knit, well-bred clan….” Brother and sister Nick and Peggy cope with their mother’s possible infidelity, their father’s apathy, and their own complicated love lives.
Eubank’s first theater experience with OACT involved another play about a complex relationship. “The Owl and the Pussycat” pits educated Felix against uneducated Doris. Eubanks felt drawn to the Art Center in 1972 when his roommate, whose family lived in Ojai, got him into folk dancing there on Thursday nights. After spotting the audition notice for “The Owl and the Pussycat” Eubansks thumbed his way from Moorpark to Ojai for the audition. A fulltime student at Moorpark College, studying Theater with an emphasis on directing, he didn’t have time to read the play. The director said Eubanks, then 19 and looked 16, appeared much too young to play the thirty-something Felix, and turned him away.
The next morning in his directing class, Ventura County theater icon and professor Dr. Robert E. “Doc” Reynolds took him aside. Reynolds told Eubanks he thought him perfect for a group looking for a new director for an already scheduled production. The play? “The Owl and the Pussycat.” Of course Eubanks jumped at the chance and the Art Center Board of Directors gave him the job based on Reynolds’s recommendation. Without a car Eubanks used the $10 a week stipend for food, slept in the gallery on an old couch by the fireplace, and hitchhiked back to Moorpark for classes in the morning.
While majoring in Theater Arts at UCLA another profession lured Eubanks away from a theatrical career. He became a private eye and worked for 22 years without theater in his life. In 1994 he moved his detective agency from Los Angeles to Ventura. His daughters then got involved in acting at none other than the Ojai Art Center. Cassandra, his oldest daughter, performed in “Big River” in 1997, and coaxed Eubanks to accept a couple smaller roles. He did and the “theater bug” bit him again.
Eubanks joined the Art Center Theater Branch, which soon led to them twisting his arm to serve as Treasurer. He took on the role of Chairman of the branch from 1998 to 2003, then again in 2006, at which time the Art Center honored him with a lifetime membership.
“The Ojai Art Center Theater will always be my home theater–always,” Eubanks said. “The place is infested with the most interesting people I’ve ever met. It was where I received opportunities to challenge myself as an artist and director.”
In 2004 Eubanks accepted the position of Artistic Director for Elite Theatre Company in Oxnard, which he ran until 2018. He co-founded The Beacon Theater Company in 2019 with Ojai locals Steve Grumette and Anna Kotula. They produced three plays before the pandemic hit. All the while Eubanks still directed plays in Ojai including “The Lion in Winter,” “The Fantasticks,” “Equus,” “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” “The Glass Menagerie,” “Wait Until Dark,” “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” “A Streetcar Named Desire” and others.
“It’s been a long journey from teenager to grandfather,” Eubanks said. “No one will convince me I was not meant to practice my craft at the Ojai Art Center.”
Eubanks also continued to work his day-job as an investigator until he closed it in March 2020 after 45-years. Now he plans to move to Tennessee to start his own nonprofit theater company in Knoxville.
Now retired Eubanks writes full-time. Two of his short stories were published this year in The Woven Tale Press and The Oddville Press. He recently completed a novel and a new play.
“Family Furniture,” one of four plays Eubanks submitted to the play-reading committee in 2019, serves as a fitting farewell for him, since the play deals with the shifts people experience in family life.
“Getting to direct one more time before I leave California is truly a blessing and an answer to prayer,” Eubanks said. “The Ojai Art Center Theater is my family. Onward!”
Tickets for the weekend performances June 25 through July 18, no show July 4th, are $20 general admission, $18 seniors and AC members, and $10 for those under 25.