Staging a comeback

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Pendleton Heights musical represents milestone, reunion of sorts for 2013 graduate

By Brady Extin | The Times-Post

PENDLETON — Ten years after graduation, Skyler Leffingwell makes his return to the Loran G. Skinner Auditorium stage at Pendleton Heights.

A 2013 Pendleton Heights graduate, and member of the Pendleton Players throughout high school, Leffingwell returned to help this year’s production of “Back to the 80’s” by playing the adult version of the show’s main character, Corey Palmer.

“It’s definitely a nostalgic show with the whole 80s theme. It’s like a jukebox musical, so it’s all music that most people know. It’s a cool thing,” Leffingwell said. “They did this show a year after I graduated from high school, so it’s kind of cool to now get a chance to take part in it.”

Theater has played a big role in Leffingwell’s life since his first year at Pendleton back in middle school. Leffingwell took up theater as an opportunity to meet new people. From there, the passion for it grew and led to many notable performances throughout high school.

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“I started doing theater back in middle school,” Leffingwel said. “I was the new kid back at Pendleton in seventh grade, and I thought it would be a good way to make friends, and then I just grew to love it.”

Throughout his time as a member of the Pendleton Players, Leffingwell played many roles. His first high school performance was in “Cinderella,” and some of his bigger roles later on include Tin Man in “The Wizard of Oz,” Lumière in “Beauty and the Beast,” Rolfe Gruber in “The Sound of Music,” and Bob Cratchit in “A Christmas Carol.”

Although a passion of Leffingwell’s, opportunities to perform have been tough to come by since graduating.

Between work and other things, Leffingwell said that he just hasn’t had the time to join a community theater, but has been in the ear of Pendleton Players artistic and technical director Jacque Brown, waiting for an opportunity to get back on the stage.

“It’s been something that I’ve wanted to do, but I haven’t really been able to take the time away from work to join a local theater or anything like that. I’ve asked Jacque many times though if we were ever going to do a community theater summer show, which is something that we used to do when I was in high school, but since I’ve graduated she hasn’t had any summer shows,” Leffingwell said. “So I have been asking relentlessly, and when this opportunity came up she immediately asked me and that’s how I got involved.”

The return to performing at Pendleton Heights serves as both a milestone and full circle moment for Leffingwell.

This year marks 10 years since his 2013 graduation, and he gets to be back on stage once again with Pendleton Heights senior Tanner Huffman, who played his son, Tiny Tim, in “A Christmas Carol.”

Both Huffman, and Leffingwell play Corey Palmer, with Leffingwell as the older version and Huffman as the high school version.

“It’s kind of a really cool, full-circle moment, and it’s his senior year now, so it’s nice that we get to be on stage together again before he graduates,” Leffingwell said.

Although not performing in theater recently, Leffingwell is still no stranger to being in front of a camera.

He and his husband, Randy Caplinger, both appeared in an episode of Netflix’s “Say I Do,” where experts Jeremiah Brent, Thai Nguyen and Gabriele Bertaccini went to a different city for each episode to help couples create the wedding of their dreams in less than a week.

After filling out an application, and going through multiple rounds of interviews, they were selected to be the featured couple on the Indianapolis episode.

“That was an incredible experience. A lot of reality television has the perception of ‘oh, it’s scripted or forced acting,’ but in reality, the show that I was on was not acting, it was all natural just go with the flow conversation, and then they picked and chose what to use,” Leffingwell said. “It was an amazing experience, and ultimately it resulted in a free wedding, which was incredible, and overall it was just really cool.”

Now back on the stage in front of a live audience, Leffingwell gets his opportunity to act and perform once again, and it’s something he said has been more than worth the wait.

“I think it’s just all extra special because it is where I went to school. Just being back on that stage, and all those memories flooding back in, is pretty crazy. And I get to see how times have changed and how high schoolers are so different these days,” Leffingwell said. “This year marks my 10-year anniversary of graduation, so this is kind of like a milestone, I suppose. It’s just been awesome being back in the Pendleton Heights theater.”

“Back to the 80’s,” will be presented at 7 p.m. April 14-15 and 1:30 p.m. April 16. Tickets ($10 for adults, $7 for students 18 and under and senior citizens 65 and older) are available at pendletonplayers.com until two hours before showtime. After that, people must purchase tickets at the door.

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