It’s a humbling thing to be asked to contribute our small story to Kearney Creates, where the wealth of arts is vast and the community of artists is remarkable.

The Thalken family story begins in the fall of 1977, when vocal student Lois and piano student Todd found themselves routinely rehearsing music together in a cramped practice room, and the vocalist decides she has found her accompanist for life.

The two were very active in both the Department of Music and the Theater Department as they worked towards their degrees in Vocal Music Education and Piano Performance. Todd was well-known in the department as the soloist who could best deliver the large show-stopping Chopin or a flashy Prokofiev. Lois enjoyed a variety of experiences on the college stage, including roles such as Guinevere in Camelot and Polly Brown in The Boyfriend. And, of course, Todd was typically the unseen man on the keys in the college orchestra pit during productions.

Their active roles in Kearney State College-KSC, now the University of Nebraska at Kearney-UNK, blended seamlessly into a lengthy history with Kearney Community Theater-KCT productions. At KCT Todd served as accompanist, piano conductor, and music director, while Lois was on stage, typically taking on a lead role in a dozen or more different shows. A few of her favorites were playing Sally Bowles in Cabaret, Louise in Gypsy, Aldonza in Man of La Mancha, and Desiree in A Little Night Music. The total number of UNK and KCT shows the couple worked on together would be easily summed up as countless.

Following graduation, Lois worked two years as a vocal music teacher at Wood River, then followed that as vocalist with Jolly Roger, one of the area’s most popular top 40’s bands. She also served as Executive Director of Kearney Area Arts Council. Todd continued to work in management at Kearney Floral Co. It was in 1987 that fellow musician, Greg Tesdall, proposed the idea of combining their diverse musical experiences to create a jazz trio, and Thalken, Tesdall, and Thalken was born.

The three set out on a journey of covering not only basic jazz standards, but also digging into some lesser-known arrangements of artists such as Maxine Sullivan, Louis Jordan, Sarah Vaughan, and Dave Brubeck, so they would be channeling a musical style that was not readily accessible for listeners in the area.

The group quickly became regularly featured artists at area venues, concerts, and special events, and were the staple entertainment at the Cattleman’s Mining Company Lounge. Bookings took them to a variety of settings, with stages as diverse as a flatbed truck outside an Elm Creek truck stop in below freezing temperatures, to the honor of being the featured performers on the first level of the Lied Center, when the new performing arts center opened its doors to the public for the very first viewing.

In 1990, the couple purchased Kearney Floral Co., the business where Todd had worked as a delivery boy during his college years. With the birth of their daughters, Liza, Isabel, and Rosamond, the couple continued to perform, but with less frequency. It was not uncommon for the little girls to accompany their parents to KCT for rehearsals, or to spend evenings at Greg’s house while the trio rehearsed, and to always get preferred seating at their parents’ various concerts.

The three Thalken girls still hold fond memories of some of Kearney’s finest players when they would come to the Thalken house to rehearse for upcoming concerts and various gigs, players such as Wes Hird, Ron Crocker, and Craig Link. Craig currently drums with the band. One career highlight for Lois was a guest soloist appearance with Kearney Symphony Orchestra.

A few years later Thalken, Tesdall, and Thalken became TeZZ with the addition of Terry Speed on alto sax and Terry Ryan on baritone sax. Marty Tilley, on mouth harp, appears frequently as guest artist. Liza, who first appeared as a guest vocalist when she was a junior in high school, continues to join the stage whenever the opportunity arises. Current repertoire includes jazz, jump tunes, blues, and pop.

On the home front, from the birth of the first baby forward, the norm was to include music, and, yes, a lot of theatrics, in how one should carry out the day. One might be hard pressed to say if there was ore music, dance, and theater that was created, shared, and enjoyed within the wall of the Thalken home, or more created that would be visible within the community over the coming years.

Creativity was heavily encouraged and seemed to blossom quite early. On a given day, at least one out of the three was composing a new song, choreographing a new dance, writing the next scene, or perhaps ‘designing’ a new set of costumes for the resident actors, be they human, family pets, or favored toys.

The three each began dance, piano, and voice lessons at an early age. Small dramatic reenactments of favorite scenes from movie musicals popped up early. In-house dance recitals happened in the garage, to fully utilize those tap shoes, along with the ballet and jazz numbers. Bedtime routines included dramatic readings of favorite books, assigning the appropriate voice for each of the beloved characters.

One particular summer, in lieu of signing up for children’s summer activities outside of the home, the three girls spent countless hours of rehearsal at home, memorizing lines, developing characters, selecting costumes, all in preparation for the staging of a five-character, six-scene play that was written, directed, and video recorded by Mom. There was also the stretch of years, where Mom coached the girls on their contributions to solo and group performances on piano, voice, and whatever new instrument was in the house, all for the annual Christmas cd recording.

Over the years, the three girls would be involved in church pageants, liturgical dance, Academy of Children’s Theater productions, and KCT productions, Kearney School of Dance and Gymnastics, piano recitals, elementary and then middle school and then high school talent shows, ensembles, musical theater productions, band and orchestra, National Association Teachers of Singing competitions, KHS Dance Katz, and Crane River Theater.

In 2021, Lois and Todd retired from the floral industry, selling their much beloved Kearney Floral Co. TeZZ continues to perform at area events and venues. Todd continues as collaborative accompanist for UNK, something he has done for over twenty years, and also is band director and keyboardist for the Celebration Band at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. As an actress, Lois has most recently been seen on the Crane River Theater stage, some productions hosted at The World Theatre, including performances in Two Rooms, Driving Miss Daisy, and The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night.

When asked to reflect on benefits from her childhood arts experiences, Liza says that growing up in an arts family taught me what strong connection feels like. The connection between actors and the audience, choir members, the dancer and the music. Nothing can quite compare. It helps you fully understand the power of being a part of something larger than yourself. With a BA in Psychology and an MA in Higher Education Administration at UNL, Liza’s current career is being Accreditation Coordinator for Central District Health Department.

For the past ten years, Isabel has dedicated her career to the visual side of life, and is owner and photographer of Isabel Thalken Photography. She currently lives in Lincoln with husband Trevor. Isabel’s words on growing up with accessibility to arts—One of the biggest benefits is how comfortable I became with self-expression. From an early age, I can remember writing how songs, creating plays, choreographing dances, all forms of self-expression that helped me harness and process the big emotions that we all encounter in childhood. Access to the arts from an early age has helped me embrace different perspectives and has primed me to be a compassionate and understanding participant in the world around me.

Rosamond’s interest took a strong direction towards literary arts, earning a BA in Literature and Film Studies at UNL, an MA in Literature at WSU, and being currently a Ph.D. candidate in Information Science at Cornell University, researching cultural analytics and natural language processing. As she shares her thoughts, she recalls that theater, music, and dance were the most creative and silly spaces, where I felt I could always be appreciated as myself. I learned to take risks I those settings, which has become part of my career today. Performing during my childhood helped me with public speaking, as I learned to find confidence and fulfillment, even when feeling nervous performing in front of others.

By Lois Thalken aka Mom

Kearney Creates is glad to see the Thalken Family join the Ross, Baxter, Salestrom, and Butters families—already on this site—as families with generations active in the arts. And we welcome her further recollections of shows at both the old and current KCT.

CABARET-1990

Todd Thalken and Greg Tesdall were two of the musicians in the pit for the 1990 production of
Cabaret. Those familiar with the script will know that the Master of Ceremonies proclaims “even the band is beautiful”, as the curtain is dramatically drawn on the orchestra pit off stage right, to reveal that the band of musicians playing is dressed in very gaudy drag, and do remain visible to the audience throughout the rest of the show.
The first costume fitting for dresses for Greg and Todd was a bit of an awkward evening to say the very least. The fitting for wigs and final assignment of hair length and style was not all that much more relaxed. The news was broken to Todd that the beard must go. The first round of applying makeup for the two was quite the tedious tutorial. However, following several days of complete costume and makeup, I walked into the dressing room area on opening night to find the two of them checking the mirror to make sure their backsides were at full potential, and discussing whether Todd’s dress made him look fat. Their further discussion included shared opinions of whether Todd’s rouge was applied dark enough, or whether Greg needed more mascara, or maybe they should experiment with another shade of eyeshadow, and possibly switch out to a brighter shade of lipstick. Obviously, the concept had grown on them. And if memory serves me correctly, during the run of the show, Greg and Todd both just got more and more “beautiful” each and every night.

GYPSY -1987

One of three characters who offers her professional advice on stripping to newbie stripper
Gypsy Rose Lee, the simply electrifying Miss Electra was played by Katie Nickel, alongside Mary Berglund as Miss Mazepa-whose final stinger for her solo was a blow of the trumpet between her legs. Yep. (Backside to the audience), and Kim Eickoff, as Tessie Turie-performing a graceful ballet in a lovely flowing gown, a poetic ballet replete with multiple pelvic thrusts. As stage lighting went low, Katie shimmied those string lights attached to her leotard like nobody’s business, all three of them strutting their stuff during “Ya Gotta Have a Gimmick”. And Katie, always willing and ready to don multiple hats during KCT productions, was also working props back-stage , and I believe might have also been stage manager.

There is a point in the strip where an agent’s secretary answers an important phone call regarding the future of Mamma Rose’s budding actresses. Dear Phyllis Farenbruch portrayed that secretary who is to answer the phone ringing on the wall. The sound cue occurs in the script, but there is no ring of the phone. The backstage mechanism has failed to function. Poor Phyllis is left with no advancement of lines without a ring of a phone. In what seemed an eternity, with Phyllis looking increasingly panicked, we finally hear a loud “Brrrrring! Brrrrrring!” But not the sound of a phone. It was Katie. With full voice and body pressed just as close to the backstage wall as possible, she was providing Phyllis with her cue. Now Phyllis is in an entirely new predicament. She glances at the phone and then towards the wall where’s the voice was ringing. Back at the phone and again towards the direction of the “brrrrrring” , trying to decide where she should best physically answer the brrrrrringing phone. She finally settles on picking up the phone itself, much to the relief of us all.

Man of La Mancha-first time as produced in the old theater

All familiar with Man of La Mancha are of course well familiar with the tragic, heartbreaking death scene of Don Quixote. On this particular evening, just as Rick Marlatt, the Man of La Mancha himself, is laid out on his death bed and beginning the approach to his final profound and moving lines, we hear the sound of sirens outside the little theatre. Next we see the street exit doors swing open wide, and the red flashing lights of an ambulance fill the darkness of the house. Then we see an EMT crew with a stretcher make their unscripted entrance into the house. Rick has stalled his lines, but is of course for all intent and purposes, still a dying man. All on stage do their very best to freeze, remain in character, and observe only out of the corner of the eye as a patron is loaded onto the stretcher and transported out to the ambulance. The doors shut. Rick, ever unflappable on stage, beautifully continues on with his death scene.
EXTREMELY Important note to this story-the condition of the patron was determined to be ok.

Gypsy 1987

Possible addendum to a story Sandy Jannsen story tells about the lamb on stage. She references how quickly and how much a baby lamb can grow in size just in what would have been the three- week period of rehearsal and performance. The lamb was part of the scene for my solo entitled Little Lamb. By the end of the run, the baby sheep that Rick Marlatt had so graciously procured for the scene had transformed from Little Lamb to Little Ram. The little fella was to be cuddled up on my lap start to finish during the entire heart-wrenching solo. Goodness, was I ever so thankful that during my youth, I had been in 4-H for quite a few years, and one of my livestock activities was showing sheep at the county fair.

Lion in Winter, again when first produced in the old theatre

Teresa Coombs Waldorf was the assistant director. I was playing Princess Alais, who is King Henry’s mistress, with King Henry played by Rick Marlatt. One evening during the run of the show, I arrived at call time to find a sign on the backstage door leading to the costume room in the basement. The sign read-Lois, Tonight’s show has been cancelled. You can go home”. I of course entered anyway, to find Teresa fully dressed in Alais’ costume and headpiece, sitting in my usual dressing room spot, applying stage makeup and running Alais’ lines with Katie Nickel, the production’s Queen Eleanor.

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