College of Marin's Carla Zilbersmith directs final show
Beth Ashley Article Launched: 04/24/2008 10:52:41 PM PDT

Carla Zilbersmith has been coordinating the drama department at the College of Marin for the past 14 years. She was recently diagnosed with ALS but continues to direct and has an opening Friday at COM called War and Peacemeal, The Musical. (Special to the IJ/Jean-Paul Horré) Talking about her illness, Carla Zilbersmith becomes tearful only once, pauses, then soldiers through to the finish, ending her remarks with a radiant smile.
"When I was being diagnosed, I told myself, 'I can handle anything but ALS,'" she says. "But here I am - I'm handling it."

Zilbersmith, 45, who became drama department coordinator at College of Marin 14 years ago, learned on the day after Christmas that she had contracted amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - Lou Gehrig's disease.

One of humankind's most dreaded ailments, ALS is a neurodegenerative disorder that gradually paralyzes the body but leaves the mind intact. Usually, patients live two to five years following diagnosis. There is no cure and no effective treatment.

Facing the inevitable and "imagining my deathbed," Zilbersmith has resolved "to live the rest of my life with joy."

Specifically, she is staging her final dramatic production at the college this week, "War and Peacemeal, The Musical." She co-wrote it with her 16-year-old son, then embellished it with the help of students. A friend, David Norfleet, wrote the music.

"It is gut-bucket hilarious," she says, determined to leave 'em laughing. "I joke around all the time. What else are you going to do?"

Drama department production technician Robin Jackson says Zilbersmith's illness has hit the faculty "very hard," but at the same time brought "a sense of admiration and awe at the way she's handling all this. If anything her already wonderful sense

of humor has expanded and honed itself. ... She laughs a lot and cries a lot, which brings everyone into the circle and makes the awkwardness melt away."
Zilbersmith is scheduled to enter clinical trials soon to test whether lithium treatments can halt progress of ALS.

"Maybe it will help," Zilbersmith says. "You never know."

She is under treatment at the Forbes Norris division of California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco.

Zilbersmith's ordeal began in May with a couple of

Carla Zilbersmith was stressed out for fun in 'Wedding Singer Blues,' which proved to be a hit in Los Angeles clubs. (Provided by College of Marin)falls, which resulted in a couple of broken bones. "I assumed it was a metaphor for the end of my marriage," she says. By then, she was already living apart from her husband of 20 years.
She has since lost the use of her left hand, and even with her ankles in braces, walking is difficult. She uses a motorized wheelchair to get to the theater, by ramp and elevator. But her in-the-moment presence is upbeat, her smile a challenge, her laughter a counterpoint to a cough that recurs. "I don't have the breathing strength I used to," she says.

Student support

During our talk at the college's Performing Arts Center, two former students, Livia Demarchi of San Rafael and Heather Gordon of Larkspur, both 24, stop in to say goodbye. Both are performing professionally; Gordon leaves this fall for master's program in acting at Harvard.

"We have had students go on to Juilliard, the North Carolina School of the Arts, and now Harvard," Zilbersmith says. "Many have gone on to professional acting. Our students are a treasure. They've done some very cool things."

"(Carla) is not only an amazing director," Gordon says, "she's an amazing teacher."

"She provided the foundation for all my skills," Demarchi adds.

These two students are exceptional, Zilbersmith says, but all her students are talented. "The teacher's job is to find that brilliance and bring it out," she says.

Zilbersmith says she will miss her students, and "I will very much miss my colleagues," especially Lisa Klein, who has taken over when she was too exhausted to teach. ("The faculty campus-wide has been great," Jackson says, "donating sick-time so she can have the time off she needs to be able to complete this last show.")

Succeeded a legend

Zilbersmith came to COM from a teaching fellowship at New York University and an instructor's position at Los Medanos College in Pittsburg. She succeeded the fabled James Dunn as department head and earned his praise. "She is incredibly hard-working, a great teacher, a great motivator who gets the kids all excited," Dunn says. "... She is a lovely human being. We are going to miss her."

She is known among students for her class in improv that segued into a show every month. The past few semesters she has also taught movement and voice.

Throughout her career at the college, she continued performing as a jazz singer, impressionist and comic, doing weekend shows all over the state and in Seattle. For six months, she performed her one-woman show, "Wedding Singer Blues," in Los Angeles, driving I-5 after class Wednesdays, driving back to teach every Monday. "It's probably what killed me," she says, grinning and wagging her auburn curls. "But it was work I loved."

She built a considerable following for her show, about a performer seeking fame and fortune in New York City and ending up as a wedding singer. The Los Angeles Times compared her to Lily Tomlin.

Fundraising concerts

Recently, L.A. colleagues and fans staged two benefit shows to raise money to pay for her care. (Though she has medical insurance, it will not pay for support equipment or for a full-time aide when she needs one.)

At the benefits, comics told ALS jokes. Her favorite: "Isn't it ironic that Lou Gehrig got Lou Gehrig's disease?" She says she and her son, Maclen (named for Paul McCartney and John Lennon) make jokes, too. "We are very close," she says. "We have lots of adventures together."

Several benefit concerts are scheduled in the coming months, and friend Wendy Snyder of Berkeley has set up a Web site - http://www.quilt/

mamas.com/dmc - to help raise funds for Zilbersmith's medical bills. Synder is a quilter; the "dmc" stands for "Driving Miss Crazy" and the cadre of 25 friends who drive Zilbersmith to work and back from her home in Albany.

Although she will retire from College of Marin, Zilbersmith hopes to keep performing "while my voice lasts." Two dates are already set: at Jazz School in Berkeley on June 14 and at Anna's Jazz Islands in Berkeley on July 11.

A pleasurable diversion

Meanwhile, she is pouring her energies into "War and Peacemeal, The Musical."

"I told the students that it would be physically impossible to accomplish everything in the time we had, but we have to do it anyway, and we did. "

"War and Peacemeal" is a send-up of an Aristophanes play, "Peace," and is, according to a publicity release, "a comedy that draws comparisons between today's Iraq war and the 10-year war between Greece and Sparta."

Zilbersmith calls the play "an incendiary piece," a play that "would get me fired if I weren't retiring."

In "Peace," a man named Tragius goes into the heavens to implore the gods to help rescue Peace, which has been buried by War. In the Zilbersmith version, an American girl named Tracy talks to modern day gods (Buddha, Jesus, etc.) but "she doesn't find Peace because War is always in the way.

"She has to find peace on her own. In times of war, we have to risk joy," she says.

Zilbersmith compares the themes of the play with her own situation. "I am fighting a war, but it's a war I can't win. Joy is being taken away from me, piece by piece, chunk by chunk.

"I can't win it, but I can choose how to deal with it."

She says staging the play, with its attendant stresses, may have taken several months off her life ("positive stress is as bad as negative stress"), but hanging around home wasn't what she wanted to do, either. Instead, she seeks activities that make her happy.

"When I think about what's going to happen in the future, I don't want to look back and say 'Gee, I'm glad I spent all that time being depressed," she says.

She zigs in her wheelchair and flashes another smile.

IF YOU GO

What: "War and Peacemeal, The Musical"

When: Through May 11; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays starting May 4

Where: Studio Theater, College of Marin Fine Arts Building, Kentfield

Tickets: $15 general, $12 for students and seniors

Information: 485-9555, http://www.marin.cc.ca.us/

BENEFIT CONCERTS

- A benefit concert to help pay medical bills for Carla Zilbersmith is scheduled at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. May 6 at Yoshi's in Oakland. Thirty musicians will take part and Zilbersmith will perform from her new CD of jazz classics, "Extraordinary Renditions."

- Another benefit is set for June 12 at Bay Area Theater Sports in San Francisco.

- Those who can't make it to the concerts can contribute through www.quiltmamas.com/dmc.

Beth Ashley can be reached at bashley@marinij.com.

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