Young actor to shave head for role and cancer victims

BEFORE—Joey Landwehr and Daniel Myers with hair intact; both plan to shave their heads to aid cancer victims.
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By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO—Daniel Myers, a junior at High Tech High School, always took pride in his hair, which at one point he wore in what some called a Jewfro.  As an actor with the J*Company, he had to trim it to portray Lt. Cable in South Pacific, the first in a series of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals the youth theatre company put on this season.

The upcoming second play in the series, opening Dec. 3, is The King and I –and Myers was selected by J*Company Artistic Director  Joey Landwehr to portray  King Mongkut of Siam.  As famously portrayed in the movie by actor Yul Brynner, King Mongkut was – gulp—bald!

Myers hesitated at first about cutting his hair.  That’s okay, director Landwehr told him, there’s nothing that says an actor must be bald to portray the king.  Coincidentally, Myers received an email from some “very close family friends in Alberta, who shaved their own heads to raise money for cancer.”  The fund-raising letter had a pronounced effect on Myers.  Cutting his hair could not only be for his art, but also could help others.  The actor said he thought of his grandfather, Jim Myers, who is battling cancer in Houston, Texas;  a godfather, Alfie Rich, who succumbed to cancer in San Diego, and also about his role model,  Yul Brynner, who died of cancer after making television commercials ruing his life-long smoking habit.

Myers decided that he would indeed shave his head, while coupling it with an appeal for people to donate money to help cancer victims at the Rady Children’s Hospital of San Diego – which can be done via the website www.lfjcc.org/miracle  “The money raised will benefit the Peckham Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders at Rady Children’s Hospital,” according to  Shelley Borree, annual giving officer of the Rady Children’s Hospital Foundation.

The Rady Children’s Hospital has had various associations with the Lawrence Family JCC, home of the J*Company, Myers noted in an interview.  “A few of the Rady children perform at the JCC,” he said, and on one occasion, he recalled a traveling troupe of J*Company actors performed for patients there.  “We specifically chose the hospital because of the cancer research that they are doing.”

Landwehr said when Myers told him about his desire to use his role to help kids with cancer, “tears welled up in my eyes.  I said ‘I want to do it with you.’  I wanted him to know that I appreciate him so much!”

The two haven’t decided where or when they will cut their hair, except that it will be prior to the December 3-10 production to be staged at the Lawrence Family JCC. There is a chance that the hair-razing experience will become a publicity event, with television cameras present.

Landwehr, not wanting to take anything away from Myers, minimized his own decision to shave his head.  “I’m sort of balding a little; it’s not such a loss,” he said.

Myers, son of Jeff and Perla Myers, told this interviewer he doesn’t worry about teasing from classmates at school when he suddenly shows up for classes bald. 

“I’ve been talking to some of the students about it, and they are very supportive,” he said.  “I may inspire them to raise money.” 

Myers also moves in other circles, including Congregation Beth Israel, where his family belongs, and the San Diego Shakespeare Society.

Landwehr told San Diego Jewish World he chose to produce a series of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals not only because the songwriter-composer team were Jewish, but also because recently, when he talked to J*Company actors about the “Golden Age of theatre, some of them didn’t know what I was talking about – so I thought how better to educate them than to immerse them.”

Rodgers and Hammerstein “were the first team to put messages into their musicals, about racism and classism and about how we should treat each other,” said Landwehr.

Alluding to Myers’ efforts in behalf of cancer victims, he said of Rodgers and Hammerstein: “They’re still relevant.”

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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World