To interview Johnathan Felch is to interview a young feathered hawk trying not to dance (but dancing anyway) at the end of a tipping branch, eyeing his prey, gathering his focus, anticipating that next flick of a moment that will fling him wholeheartedly into the ecstasy of doing what he feel he’s called to do. Johnathan Felch is an actor. And to speak with him is to open a primer on the subject.Johnathan for his scant 24 years has a wealth of acting experiences behind him. He participates in local community theatre and has been a go-to actor at Cuesta College for seven years. The prospect of appearing in Blue Train particularly excites him—despite (or maybe because of) some of his co-actors who have never studied the arts.

I’ve been an artist for a long time; I’ve been in a lot of plays; I’ve worked with a lot of different people. And I’d rather work with a novice who is motivated, pleasant to work with, punctual and really trying rather than to work with an experienced and talented actor who just doesn’t give a damn.

“There is a thing that is beautiful about the people who are willing to work hard in theatre—even if at first they don’t know what they’re doing. Because they grow! They grow so much, and so many beautiful things come out of these people who are really working at it. It doesn’t matter that someone doesn’t have previous experience, and it doesn’t matter that is doesn’t come easily. It still comes out because everybody has this creative energy.

"They may not know that they have it. They may not know how to let it out. But that’s okay, because in real theatre you work to open yourself up, you become vulnerable. If there is nothing about what you’re doing that is hard or scary or challenging, then you’re never going to grow. Without growth, there’s no passion, and without passion you’re audience isn’t going to believe you—because you don’t believe yourself.”

In Blue Train, Johnathan will be playing Fat Dog, a character whom he describes as the essence of evil in the play. This will be especially challenging to the young actor.

“If you asked my friends, they would describe me as a very congenial person. I’m the “everybody-loves-Johnathan” kind of guy. I get typecast that way sometimes, which makes this role especially challenging for me. It’s very different from the way that I normally present myself.  But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t pieces of Fat Dog’s evil inside of me. Everybody has all these facets of themselves, faces that they put on. All of these little pieces are parts of ourselves that we send to the forefront at different times. Some of them maybe haven’t reached the forefront yet.

Johnathan will know he has played his part well, not only if he can find those parts of Fat Dog inside himself and bring them out, but if the audience is brought into the process with him. “If we do our jobs, the audience will ask themselves, Oh, is that a part of me, too?”

According to Johnathan, it is within such a collaborative environment that actors and audience together are capable of analyzing complex human behaviors.

And maybe this is, after all, the point of bringing Blue Train to the Central Coast.  If this passionate hawk of an actor is right, if these performers, these ex-convicts do find and deliver honest pieces of themselves to their roles, and if an audience from this prison county actually shows up willing to step into the spun magic of an actor’s passion, then maybe something really important will be simultaneously contributed and gained by everyone in the room, maybe by everyone in the the county--eventually, maybe by everyone.