Bay Area native's jazz hero inspires her to write noteworthy show

By Heather Zimmerman
For Bay Area News Group - MercuryNews.com

Article Launched: 03/11/2008 07:04:17 PM PDT

Heidi Tokheim to perform ""Stella by Starlight''

March 14, 8 p.m. at...

In writing her first work for the stage, actress and jazz pianist Heidi Tokheim built on that time-honored literary advice - "Write what you know" - so that she could do what she loves.

Tokheim's solo jazz comedy, "Stella by Starlight," combines equal parts stage play and musical performance to tell the story of Stella, a young jazz pianist who finds her groove when she meets her hero, jazz great Herbie Hancock.

Tokheim performs "Stella by Starlight" March 14, 8 p.m. at the Sunnyvale Community Center Theatre, 550 E. Remington Drive, Sunnyvale. The show is sponsored by California Theatre Center.

This local engagement not only marks the West Coast premiere of "Stella," but also a return to old stomping grounds for Tokheim, who grew up in Menlo Park. She began some of her theatrical training with Sunnyvale's California Theatre Center in its summer youth conservatory programs. She later worked professionally with the company during high school and as an adult.

Stella has enjoyed successful runs at several New York City clubs and cabarets, including the Metropolitan Room, where it premiered last fall. Tokheim, who lives in New York, spent about a year developing the show, drawing on a desire to bring both her specialties - theater and music - together.

Her father gave her the idea of looking for ways to unite acting with playing jazz. "I hadn't played piano in a little while, and I wanted to bring that back into my life," Tokheim says, "so I just

brainstormed about what kind of scenario could bring those two worlds onstage together in the form of a play."

Around that time, Tokheim attended a concert at Carnegie Hall to hear one of her favorite musicians, jazz pianist Herbie Hancock.

"Shortly after that," she says "I did come up with the idea that fed into the synopsis of 'Stella by Starlight,' in which Herbie Hancock comes and inspires a young aspiring jazz piano player how to play jazz well. I incorporated my love for his music and how it's affected me in my life, and created a story about that."

Stella is not alone on her quest to become a better musician. During the show, Tokheim portrays the title character as well as a handful of other characters, including Hancock himself, and others in the music scene, including a club owner. The show incorporates Tokheim performing a number of jazz songs at the piano.

Tokheim says she enjoys the many different styles that Hancock's career has encompassed, so she didn't focus on any particular period of his music in choosing what to include in Stella. "It kind of just evolved. I ended up choosing songs that I really like to play," she says.

The name "Stella by Starlight," and by extension, the name of the main character, is drawn from a jazz standard that Hancock has recorded several times.

In a sense, the character of Stella actually met Hancock before her creator did, but Tokheim did get the chance to meet him in real life as well. During the writing of "Stella by Starlight," Hancock played at a small venue in the area, and Tokheim and her husband waited backstage to meet him. "He was very welcoming, and he sat down with me for quite some time and was just very curious about the project.

"That was a very inspiring experience, to say the least," Tokheim says.

Hancock was enthusiastic about the unique theater-and-jazz format of the show. Also, Tokheim says that she found that her research had yielded an accurate characterization of the musician and reflected his philosophy of mentoring.

The importance of a mentor's role is one of Stella's major themes. "For me, in the real world, it's listening to Herbie's music, and that influences and informs the jazz piano that I play," Tokheim says. "Definitely for Stella, she learns how to be a better player and even though that person leaves, she still carries away the lessons that she learned from him. That's such a great thing - the teachings never really leave you, even if its form is just having CDs in your back pocket."