Chet Robert Davino?
So, hi.
Hello.
Usually there's Frank Sinatra.
I like Frank Sinatra.
You do?
I do.
In general, or do you have a favorite song?
Um...
In the general sense of liking Frank?
I like a lot of his stuff, um, but right now I've been listening to "I'll Be Seeing You" a lot.
Cool.
What's your name?
Chet Robert Davino.
Is that your stage name or your full name?
That's my full name and my stage name.
Great. Chet R. Davino?
Uh huh. That's my Dad's name.
Are you a second?
No, the last two names are the same.
I was gonna say...
Now. Where are you from?
Dumont, New Jersey.
Cool.
And when I was 5 I moved to Redding, Connecticut.
Okay. Where is that?
It's in Fairfield County.
I know that.
Um, where did you go to school?
Dean College.
And you just graduated...
I did.
Congratulations Chet Robert Davino. What did you graduate with a degree in?
I graduated with an Associates in Theater Arts and Technical Application and I graduated with a B.A. in Theater Arts.
Did you like Dean?
I did. It was what I needed at the time, but it's a growing program at the same time, so there's a lot that I missed out on.
I went to Franklin School of the Performing Arts so I know Franklin...
Yeah.
And I would take ballet class in that studio that was right there...so I know Dean College because of that.
I would walk by that every day.
Yeah. It was a good time...it was a lot of work.
It's a good area.
It is a nice area. You should go into those spaces once. That's what I want to have one day...like an F.S.P.A. for myself.
You should.
Like a Fame...
You should do Squirrels.
Yeah. Squirrels. I think that needs to have a section in this interview...
Okay.
I, Caroline Casey, Caroline Elaine Casey, am the co-writer of Squirrels the Musical which you have seen...
Yes I have seen...
The opening number of. "I Have a Tail."
(sings) "I have a tail..." Stephan also did some pretty cool choreography for it...he had a couple people onstage.
He had a few people! He choreographed it!
It looked very good.
It was unexpected. He showed me that video and I was like, this is a full production.
It's a whole number.
At Williamstown! The night Idina Menzel was there!
Yeah. It was on a full stage around like, company members and stuff like that.
Incredible.
Yeah. They loved it.
And he gave me a shoutout! You knew me before anyone else here. Even Al.
Even before I knew you.
Incredible. Okay, enough about Squirrels...just know that I'm gonna write you in someday.
Thank you. I'll be there.
Maybe like, the snake.
I'm down with that.
Or you could be like, I don't know. I have to think about it. You open many possibilities for my show...anyways, this is not about me.
What is your favorite Shakespeare play?
My favorite Shakespeare play, um, comedy, is Much Ado. Um, my favorite tragedy is probably Julius Caesar.
"Et tu, Brute." Hm. Iulius Caesar. That's how you say it in Latin.
Is it?
Yeah.
Hm. I did not know that.
I had to translate some of it once in my life. I don't know, it was a rough day for me but...anyways...
Do you have a favorite character? Actually, your favorite character and then a character you'd like to play. They are two different things...maybe not though. Depending on you though, Chet Robert Davino...
Well, in the whole of Shakespeare?
In the whole of Shakespeare.
My favorite character is probably Horatio. I like Horatio a lot.
Why?
He's just good. He's very much a lawful good and he strives to do what's best for not only himself but for others and it's important that we remember that he tries to do his best for himself as well, because there are those selfless good characters that are like so good that they don't care about themselves. But it's important for people to care about themselves. You have to care about yourself before you can care about others. That understanding of what's important for himself and his country is also important to his best friend and his duty to his best friend, um, I find this very admirable. And the fact that he has to suffer...he's the one who has to suffer at the end of the play and must tell the story.
So you want to play Horatio...
I would like to play Horatio at some point...
Who would you want to play?
I would love to play Benedick. It was the first play that, Much Ado was the first Shakespeare play that I read on my own that I fully understood. Um, and, and, I don't know...he's stupid and witty, fun, and scary all at the same time...he's a very real character, um, no matter how over-exaggerated he can be played, he's a very real character.
I think that's right. I think he's the most interesting.
Him and Beatrice are very strong, real characters. They have a real earthy quality about them because we see them with these dark pasts that they hide, their facades. They have a, yeah, they have a real grounded sense of being people. And then you have characters like Claudio and Hero who are the lovers, and Shakespeare always makes fun of that in the play, but yeah, I want to play Benedick really badly. Someday.
So you've like Shakespeare for a while?
Uh, yeah, my Mom was an English major, um, so I was reading Shakespeare, or I had Shakespeare read to me when I was little, like a toddler. My sister is also a big lit nut so she would like, read it to me all the time. She did Twelfth Night in high school and then when I first, like, saw Shakespeare performed and that was awesome. I thought it was the coolest thing. There were people I knew and I got to see her play Olivia which is so different from Kerry's Olivia, like, I remember it very vividly. That's another moment where I was affirmed that I really wanted to do theater.
And then you applied to this program.
Yes, immediately after...I've been deferring for a long time. They've been actually wondering when I was about to show up...
Do you have a favorite experience here so far?
Um...
Very specific. I want one specific story. Every gives me vague answers...like do you forget?
Well, we've only been here for so long...
I don't care. I could tell you one right now.
What's yours?
I'm not telling you mine! This isn't my interview, asshole!
Um...
Go ahead. Try to pick one.
I would say one of my favorite moments, the one that comes to mind first would be when we had our first day off um, and we went to this lake in Wellesley and when we got there we realized...a bunch of us went, and then we realized when we got there that we had to pay $15 to get in so we like wandered around this little trail...so we followed that and there was this area with beach, so we went swimming there. And then it started to rain and then we got back, went and got food, went back to Babson and brought all our mattresses in the common room and watched movies and stuff and I fell asleep, but it was really good.
That's nice. You're the first one to talk about something that isn't...every day...stuff.
Can you do a monologue for me?
Do I have to do a monologue...
Don't sigh! This is Shakespeare Camp!
Uh, yeah. I can do a monologue for you.
Which one?
I'll do Antony from Antony and Cleopatra. I'll voice act it.
Thank you.
You have a nice voice.
Thanks. I got an award for it.
Really? What award?
I got the VASTA Award for um, speech and...for understanding of speech and conveyance of text.
Do you have a favorite piece of advice?
You only live life once and you should live it as though once is enough.
Thank you, Chet.
Thank you. Frank Sinatra said that.
He did?
Yeah he said, "You only live life once and the way I live it once is enough."
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