Willow Glen, California Since 1992
Neighbors
Love to Act: Tom Gough 'ham'-lets it up at the City Lights Theater Company, where he is the artistic director. Man has directed or acted in more than 100 productions By Amy Jenkins Willow Glen resident Tom Gough must hold numerous jobs to make ends meet. But even though the 36-year-old Gough works 60 hours per week, he considers himself lucky because he's doing what he loves best - working in the theater. Gough is the artistic director of San Jose's City Lights Theater Company, which was founded in 1982 to develop adventurous, thought-provoking theater productions and bring a more urban identity to the San Jose arts community. He also teaches drama at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills and Ohlone College in Fremont and is a founding and active member of the Comedy Sportz improvisational troupe in San Jose. Gough discovered his love for acting during his senior year at Homestead High School in Cupertino. After high school he earned a bachelor's degree and teaching credential from Santa Clara University and obtained a master's degree in fine arts from UC-Davis. After graduating from college, he taught junior high and high school for five years. One of the schools where he taught was Markham Middle School in Willow Glen, which was a junior high school called Willow Glen Educational Park when Gough worked there in 1989. In 1987, Gough helped found Comedy Sportz, an improvisational comedy club in which comedians play games and act out ideas suggested by the audience. While it has always been part of the nationwide National Comedy Theater, there are now many more franchises than when Gough started the club in San Jose. Similar to the television show, "Whose Line is it Anyway?", two teams, consisting of three comedians each, compete against each other for audience votes and laughs. Gough says that although he enjoys acting, teaching and directing, he gets the most joy out of acting. So far Gough has acted in or directed more than 100 shows throughout Northern California. Among the many theater companies he has been involved with are the Marin Shakespeare Company in Marin County, Pacific Repertory Theater in Carmel and Center Rep in Walnut Creek. "The nature of this business is, you go where the work is," Gough explains. "I acted a lot at my colleges and at City Lights before I became artistic director." In addition to acting, Gough has enjoyed teaching college drama courses. This is his seventh year on the faculty at Foothill College, where he teaches year-round. But because Foothill College is on the quarter system and Ohlone College is on the semester system, he is not able to teach summer school at both schools. "Some days I am teaching the students and I can't believe I get to do this for a living," Gough says. "The things they do, learn and come up with are amazing. I laugh so much in the improv class I think to myself, 'Most people don't come home at the end of the day saying they laughed this much at work.' " Gough teaches voice lessons, beginning acting classes, improvisational classes and dramatic literature to a group of 30 students at Foothill College's training conservatory. He is currently a dialect coach for Foothill Music Theater's production of On the Town, where he coaches students on the various dialects of New York City's boroughs, including Long Island, Brooklyn and the Bronx. The play, about World War II sailors determined to make the most of a 24-hour shore leave in the Big Apple, runs from July 19 to August 11 at Foothill College's Smithwick Theater. "I became fascinated with dialects at a young age," says Gough, who had International Phonetic Alphabet training. "I had an ear for accents, and training has helped me with most dialects. At this point, I would always like to be involved in theater in some way, shape or form in my life." |
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