Song, Dance and Business, All in a Day’s Work

Few would make an immediate connection between owning a toy store and stage acting, but Laguna Beach resident Carol Robinson does just that.

She embodies the preacher’s wife in the current Laguna Playhouse production “Footloose.”

“Stage work requires a lot of hard work and training, but a love of play, of creating something lies at the root of it,” said Robinson, who sees a connection between acting and her former day jobs as a representative for a toy maker, owning a toy store and now running the Jasmine Street General Store on Coast Highway. She sold the Irvine toy store Jitterbugs in 2005 to become her father’s caregiver.

A Laguna Beach resident since 1989, Robinson’s community theater credits include productions with Gallimaufry Performing Arts, No Square Theatre, and the Big Splash, an AIDS Services Foundation variety show and fundraiser. Her husband Randy sculpts sets for the Pageant of the Masters and describes his wife as “an amateur with high standards.”

Robinson, a non-union actress, auditioned for the “Footloose” role with show producer Boebe Productions. Paula Sloan both directs and choreographs the musical.

Playhouse Artistic Director Ann E. Wareham said professionalism should not be measured against membership in acting guilds. Young actors early in their careers and mature ones who return to the stage often forego joining, she said. “Everyone you see on our stage is a professional actor at some level,” she said.

Jill Slyter, who in “Footloose” portrays the mother of the lead character, Ren McCormack, is a retired dancer now studying nursing in Campbell, Calif. “It’s summer and I came back for the love of it,” she said, trying on a mermaid costume at Jasmine.

Arts Commission member Pat Kollenda, who starred in the recent Playhouse production “Love, Loss and What I Wore,” also performed with Robinson in No Square Theatre’s “Lagunatics” and “Splash.”

“Carol is phenomenal in ‘Footloose.’ I’ve never heard her sing better. Besides having a great voice, she is also a great tapper,” Kollenda said.

Ken Jillson, who began producing The Big Splash in 1985, describes Robinson as an amazing team player who had volunteered every year for 20 years. “No matter what part I gave her, she always exuded enthusiasm. She had a great stage presence dancing and singing and in 2000, when we had a circus theme, she juggled and taught the rest of the cast how to do it,” recalled Jillson.

Before opening her general store in 2013, Robinson worked at Crystal Cove as a director of retail operations. “The work kept me in touch with the toy business, which I love and gave me the inspiration for the Jasmine store. It’s a Laguna store, a really appealing space with a rhythm that works with residents and visitors alike,” she said.

Crystal Cove also inspired her to write a charming children’s book, “Crystal’s Cove and the Legend of a Mermaid’s Tear.” Co-written by Hayley Walton Ryan and illustrated by Chelsea Hipple, it creates a legend around pieces of beach glass, the tears of a young mermaid who fell in love with a human boy.

A dancer since early childhood, Robinson, now 59, admits to a few creaky joints. While she used to describe herself as a dancer who sings, she’s recast herself as a singer who dances.

And how did she get the role of the outwardly demure but determined preacher’s spouse? “Paula Sloane told me that she saw Vi in me. I have to be the calm, still character even though I am not normally cast as quiet. I also don’t sing ballads normally but I was thrilled to accept the challenge,” she said.

Performing in eight shows a week and running a business keeps her on her toes. “But, I am having fun and it keeps me out of mischief,” she said.