Remembering Randall Marquis

By GEORGIA GEMPLER and SEAN NAGLE-MCNAUGHTON
UNLEASHED STAFF
In every hero story, there is a person who has done everything and is willing to teach you what they have learned.
For nine years at Discovery Lab School, the hero was Randall Marquis.
The former district judge taught young actors all he knew about acting and theater. He volunteered his time from 2000 until his death on Dec. 16, 2008. He was 82.
Marquis was a man of many talents.
And we were surprised when we saw his obituary. We had seen him as this energetic old man who would not stop for anything. During our time under his direction, he showed us how do a myriad of things: how to act blind drunk, how to be scared by invisible monsters, how to be in love, act regal, and above all, to keep the show moving.
If he did not like our interpretations, he would leap up and go through the motions himself amazing us as well as our fellow actors with his skill and articulation.
A Discovery Lab School player, 14-year-old Ben Hohman, agrees: “He was a natural. He put himself in your place. He could do it exactly as he wanted.”
Other young thespians say Marquis taught them how to stage laugh realistically, or do the stage kiss, which is very difficult for middle school students.
Under his guidance — with help from 46-year-old Discovery Lab teacher Irene Smith — the Discovery Lab School Players have put on many plays, starting with “Cyrano de Bergerac” by Edmond Rostand and ending with “Comedy of Errors,” “Twelfth Night,” “The Taming of the Shrew,” “Merchant of Venice,” “Much Ado About Nothing,” “Julius Caesar” and “The Tempest” — all by William Shakespeare.
DLSP cannot pay for costumes; all are donated. And the entrance fee to a DLSP play, performed at the A.C. Davis High School auditorium, is a canned food donation to Northwest Harvest.
The entire DLSP acting program is volunteer-based; actor and director alike complete the plays on their own time. In all, Marquis put in more than 1,000 hours of community service.
In the aftermath of the director’s death, DLSP plays have gone on. Now, Smith and her daughter, 17-year-old Elizabeth Smith, a senior at Davis, direct them. But Marquis is missed.
“I miss floating ideas past him, counting on his ability to make the right choices in casting, laughing with him at the humor, and turning the direction over to his vast expertise,” Irene Smith says.
Her daughter says Marquis had been “grooming” her for the part of director. She participated in six productions that Marquis directed and was part of the stage crew after she left for high school.
Hohman says Marquis had a sort of air of calm about him. Another actor, Kathryn Moore, says, “The play this year is lonely. Somehow, there’s always something missing in a scene.”
It seems that everyone Marquis directed misses him. It also seems like every time we saw him near the end he became more frail and shaky. And still, every day there was play practice, he would turn up, ready to go.
Marquis truly enjoyed being there, directing the play and making us all better actors. He taught us the “QFC” concept: quiet on the set, focus, and cues.
Quiet on the set was extremely important with middle school students, and Marquis would shout it every time a new scene started. Focus meant you had to remember your lines, pay attention to what you were doing, and stay in character.
But cues were probably his favorite part of the saying. Marquis was adamant about actors remembering their cues. He got very irritable if anyone missed a cue. And, of course, it happened to us numerous times.
Marquis is — and will continue to be — sorely missed by all who knew him. As he himself used to say, “The play must go on.” And so must our lives, without his exceptional leadership.

• Georgia Gempler and Sean Nagle-McNaughton are members of the Yakima Herald-Republic’s Unleashed team. They attend Davis High School.