In some respects, actors are like ballplayers: the good ones get spotted early, recruited, and developed. Such is the case whether the "talented one" lives in Podunk, USA, or the Big Apple. During his sophomore year at Seton Hall Prep James Brennan met Joe Hayes, who directed many plays in the Newark area.

Hayes advised the young Brennan to study Shakespeare as a good foundation for acting. He later recruited Brennan to apprentice at Surflight Theatre, at Beach Haven, New Jersey for the 1966 summer season. Hayes had founded Surflight in 1950. While there, Brennan learned his craft - everything from working the box office, to building sets, etc. In his first year there a boy they had hired from NYC to play the role of Dodger in Oliver! just didn't work out. All the apprentices auditioned for the role. Brennan won out...English accents were all the rage at the time, due to the Beatles, and Brennan is an excellent mimic. (Years later during an audience forum at Music Theatre of Wichita, while playing Fagin, Brennan had the sensation of having come full circle while playing his scenes with Dodger.)

Back in the mid-60s, Surflight was playing in a converted garage, they could shoehorn in @350 patrons, give or take. (This early theatre now serves as the new Surflight's scene shop.) Brennan can remember Joe giving the company a whole lot of gum to chew once, so they could patch the tin roof with it.

Brennan retured every summer there until he got his equity card not long after graduating Rutgers. They didn't get paid zip, but they took their pay in experience. They played one show at night, and rehearsed a different one during the day. Much more fun to have a great time honing acting, dancing and singing skills than to be home in Newark during the summer, particularly if it was a "long, hot summer." No contest. Brennan once said that Joe Hayes had a philosophy ... if the show needed "more plumes" then you added "more plumes." While in college, Brennan also occasionally played in Hayes's theatre, Club Bene, in Sayreville.

It is noteworthy that Brennan learned his craft "on the job" and never had a formal singing or dancing lesson in his life. (He did study acting at Rutgers, but they were more into "serious" plays than musicals.) It's nice to know that once and a while God still dumps a lot of natural talent on an individual: "Hey, Mary, watch this...another 'Astaire' - SHAZZZZZammmmm!" God is very creative and he likes to share. "He is gracious, and he loves mankind" as the eastern rite liturgy says.  </EDITORIAL>

The highlight of his time there includes meeting his future wife when he was nineteen. She had been cast to play opposite him in WHERE'S CHARLEY? They were later married during his senior year in college. And she was the one who assured him he was certainly good enough to try out for the 1st national tour of No, No, Nanette. They later also toured together in GOOD NEWS, which had a year run on the road before a brief stint on broadway, the rest is history.