Windsor grad scores female lead in San Francisco production of ‘Crazy for You'

Danielle Altizio of Windsor, a sophomore at UC Berkeley, is juggling more than the usual coursework and campus job duties this semester.

The 19-year-old actress is also making her San Francisco debut as Polly Baker, the lead female role in Bay Area Musicals' production of “Crazy for You,” running Nov. 10 to Dec. 16 at The Alcazar Theatre on Geary Street. The 1992 Tony-winning romantic musical comedy, based on the 1930 musical, “Girl Crazy,” features a score by George Gershwin and lyrics by Ira Gershwin.

As Polly - the sweet postmistress in Deadrock, Nevada, whose father is behind on his mortgage payments for the decaying Gaiety Theater - Danielle warbles her way through some of the most beautiful Gershwin songs ever written.

“Polly gets to sing ‘Someone to Watch Over Me' and ‘But Not for Me,'” she said in a phone interview from her apartment on the south side of campus. “I really love her story in the musical ... she is consistently a very strong character throughout and a really powerful force in her town.”

Despite the fact that the show is light-hearted and fun - with lots of zany plot twists and big chorus numbers drawn from the 1930 musical and other Gershwin productions - at its heart, the story offers a moving message about the power of art to help unite a community.

Polly's leading man, Bobby Child (played by Conor DeVoe), is a banker with a fondness for the stage who goes to Deadrock to seize Polly's father's theater, then ends up falling in love with Polly and putting on a show to help save the old building.

“A lot of the play takes place in the middle of Nevada in the 1930s, where Polly is the only woman around,” Danielle said. “To revitalize the town and bring hope and joy to these people's lives, they bring music and put on a show together. And it really speaks to the power that people have to change their communities.”

Danielle first played the role of Polly in “Crazy for You” with Santa Rosa's Roustabout Theater in 2016, so the musical was already on her playlist.

“It's my favorite musical ... I love the music,” Danielle said. “‘Crazy for You' is a classic, Broadway sound with the big, beautiful orchestra music.”

For Bay Area Musicals' current production, Director Matthew McCoy has re-created the original Broadway choreography by Susan Stroman for the production, an intimate version of the original musical. Bay Area Musicals is a professional, non-profit theater company dedicated to providing high-quality musical theater at an accessible price tot he community.

'It takes a lot of hours'

Try-outs for the role were held in April, and the Cal Bear got a call back in August. Her mother, Pattie Altizio of Windsor, said her daughter had a good feeling about her audition, and the whole family was beside themselves with excitement when she was offered the role.

“She's wanted to do something like this for so long,” said Pattie, who works as an executive manager for Redwood Credit Union. “It takes a lot of hours, so she really has to focus to keep her schoolwork going ... She's very motivated and dedicated.”

Once the musical went into rehearsal in late September, Danielle had to take BART to the city every day, attending evening rehearsals during the week and longer rehearsals on the weekends. She mapped out her schedule carefully in order to make sure she could get all her coursework done in the morning.

“I have to do my work weeks in advance and stay on top of that so that all of my extra time can be spent practicing for the show,” she said. “I'm taking 20 units, which is a lot of classes.”

Among her courses this semester is an acting class with actor/director and continuing lecturer Christopher Herold and a class on theater history and theory.

“What's been cool has been taking all that and applying it to the shows that I've worked on,” she said. “ Not just having the theoretical knowledge but using it.”

Although she has only declared only one major so far - in theater and performance studies with an acting focus - Danielle hopes to double major in sociology to take advantage of Berkeley's top-notch academic reputation.

Meanwhile, her parents and friends have snapped up tickets to the show's opening night, where they will be able to attend a special reception with the cast.

“Musical theater is all we talk about around here,” Pattie said. “It's become a big part of our lives.”

'It came out of nowhere'

As a child, Danielle was very studious and enjoyed the intellectual challenge of her school work, but theater was not on her radar.

Neither parent have a drama background, although her dad Rick - a salesman with Mount Storm Forest Products, a wholesale hardwood company in Windsor - sings and plays drums in a rock'n'roll band, The Renovators.

Both parents were shocked when, as a freshman at Windsor High School, Danielle announced she wanted to sign up for a drama class.

“It came up out of nowhere,” Pattie said.

“But I told her ‘I want you to be doing stuff you want to do, and then it's not work at all.'”

After enrolling in the high school's Nueva School for the Performing Arts, Danielle performed in several productions, including the comedy “Rumors,” the drama “Rear Window” and the musical “Pippin.”

After freshman year, Danielle also signed up for a summer camp with Roustabout Theater, based at the Burbank Center for the Arts. After that experience, she was hooked, going in to star in Roustabout productions such as “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” “White Christmas” and “Shrek the Musical.”

“She loved watching the older kids sing and dance,” Pattie said.

“It really clicked in her head that she wanted to keep doing it ... so she ended up getting some of the leads there.”

Although she shares the “Crazy for You” stage with other college students, the cast is diverse, drawn from all ages and all walks of life. During breaks, Danielle enjoys listening to their life stories.

“The guy who is playing Bobby is actually from New York,” she said. “Talking with people in the cast is cool, because they live all over and have different jobs.”

When the cast rehearses, they always do a voice warm-up as well as a dance warm-up, in order to be able to perform in a way that is healthy and no one gets injured.

“The ensemble numbers have a lot of high harmonies, and we have some super powerful voices in the cast,” she said. “They will be dancing a crazy tap number, and at the end, they have the breath support to hit all these high notes. The strength is amazing.”

For the past few years, Danielle also performed two shows professionally with the Woodminster Summer Musicals in Oakland's 500-acre Joaquin Miller Park. “Crazy For You” is her third professional gig.

Guiding others on journey

On campus, she works as a campus ambassador and tour guide, sitting in on meetings with school administrators and department heads in order to learn about ongoing projects at the university in order to inform the tours she gives.

“I give walking tours of the whole campus, and it's a mix of general stats, what it's like to be a student here and what my experience has been like,” she said.

“I really like meeting prospective students who are on the journey of figuring out where they want to go to school.”

In her spare time, Danielle said she will go see plays and theater productions put on by independent student groups, such as Bare Stage Productions.

When she's not working on a production herself, she will try to steal way to Windsor once a month see her friends and family, eat at one of the restaurants on the Town Green and spend time with her dogs, Sam and Lilly.

“Maybe that's what I miss the most,” she said.

“They are both shelter dogs. Lilly is ‘your guess is as good as mine,' but Sam is a Border Collie guy.”

Even when she's just standing around Sproul Plaza at Berkeley, she will keep herself busy rehearsing one of her soft shoe or tap shoe routines from the show.

“It's a really musical campus,” she said.

“ We have all these a cappella groups and songwriting clubs that are performing ... and there are three concerts a day from the carillon in the tower.”

As for the future, the actress intends to ride the musical theater express as far as it will take her.

“My dream is to continue working in professional theater, and whatever opportunities I can get in that I would love to take,” she said.

“I want to keep studying and educating myself about it. There's so many ways to go about it, and so much to learn.”

Staff Writer Diane Peterson can be reached at 707-521-5287 or diane.peterson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @dianepete56.