Check Out Weston Walker-Pardee’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Weston Walker-Pardee.

Hi Weston, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
It started with a completely ridiculous idea. I mean, seriously, who has the idea to start a theatre company in YOUR house when you’re barely 14 years old? It was when we were sitting having lunch at summer camp that I turned to my friends and said, “Guys, what if we do Matilda the Musical at my house?” Not just a song or two, I mean the whole show! Everyone at the time laughed, of course, and barely agreed to it. Yet, by Sunday, we started having rehearsals for the show. All of us being so young had no idea this whole idea would change my life and so many others.
That Sunday that started as a joke started to feel somewhat real. There were only 6 of us in the cast. There were some major brainstorming ideas we had to come up with. Matilda is a cast of at least 20. How are 6 people gonna play 20 parts? Honestly, looking back, I laugh at how confident we were. If now I was doing a show and someone says, “6 people had to play 20 parts,” I’d probably scream.
The biggest challenge was turning my living room into a theatre…
Luckily, my house has this HUGE rec room that had super high ceilings and these long beams hung across. Honestly, perfect for making a theatre. My dads are super supportive of me and my ideas, so they were mostly on board as long as I did not put too many nails in the walls. I hung up curtains on the back beam, leaving room for backstage. I then hung up lights on the beams in the front and spent lots of time with my dad learning how to program the lights and make cues. I looked around and thought, “Wow, this is truly starting to look like an actual theatre.” There was still lots to be done, though.
Then, somehow, I convinced my dad, who used to do theatre, to join the show. My other dad was doing lights for the shows, plus my sister was in the show. And plus my 5 other friends and me! It’s crazy how dedicated everyone was to the show.
We rehearsed for at least 6 months before we felt ready. Yes, that seems like a long time, but we only rehearsed Sundays for about an hour. Once it finally hit showtime, we felt ready and had an audience. I have a vivid memory of opening night after we finished the show for an audience for the first time. We all were backstage and screamed, “WE DID IT!!” That memory holds a special place in my heart because we all felt so good and proud of what we created.
Obviously, we wanted to do another show that summer. So many of our friends came to see the show and wanted to be in the next. Our next show was Legally Blonde that summer with 15 people. Much better than 6… We also only rehearsed for 4 months. Legally Blonde was much more challenging than Matilda in many aspects. The amount of set changes really challenged us and the cast. Luckily, we are all close friends and hard workers, so we overcame that. It was now a week before opening night, and we had just finished our last rehearsal before tech started. I get a text, and it says, “Hey, Weston, I have COVID.” I had felt my heart drop. I then told everyone in the group chat to test for COVID. We all tested for COVID, and every single one of us tested positive for COVID. We unfortunately had to postpone our show. Luckily, 2 weeks later, we all tested negative and were ready for the stage.
We had 2 weekends of Legally Blonde and sold out all the shows! After Legally Blonde finished, other theatre companies around the area got wind of my company and actually got mad. The reason is because I did not have a business license and paperwork for the company. We were doing all of our shows for free while other companies had to pay. So, for our next show, we actually got a business license in the city of Thousand Oaks and named the company LivingRoom Productions. We then applied for licensing for our next show, Little Shop of Horrors.
On Instagram, I put out an audition form, and so many people filled it out! I had 20-30 people who came and auditioned for me. It was so fun! Our next show had a cast of 20 people. My friend who was in the show was also the vocal director. Her dad builds sets and knows how to work with sound boards and professional lights. He ended up building us an incredible set, hanging up new lights, and a fully professional sound board. I remember walking into the theatre after the weeks of building and setting up and truly feeling like I was walking into a professional theatre space! Little Shop of Horrors surprised everyone! It was crazy after that how fast our company grew. We then went super viral on TikTok, gaining over 5k followers and over 1.2 million views!
We then held auditions for our next show where so many people came to audition! We then did 13 the Musical and shortly after The Addams Family the Musical. Then, my friend’s dad had the idea to have a live, all-teen band for our summer show of 2025. Not gonna lie, I was super scared and skeptical of this idea. I then, on Instagram, put out a casting call for a live band, and, surprising, people wanted to join in, and I’m so glad they did because it created a whole other family in my company. We set them up downstairs and used wireless mics and sound boards and headphones so the cast could hear them and they could hear us. We then did 4 more shows that school year with the live band. Each show was 2 weekends long with a total of 8 performances.
Moving forward to this previous summer, the company was coming to an end. I was moving to Chicago. I decided for our last show I wanted to repeat a show. I decided to do Legally Blonde again. I’m so glad we did. We had a cast of 40 this time, a whole costume team, 2 vocal directors, an assistant director, and a band of 13 people. It was incredible seeing how much we have grown. In the previous Legally Blonde that I was in, it was nice sitting in the tech booth and seeing everyone years later and how much they have grown. On the last show, before saying goodbye to this company that truly changed my life, I had the same feeling I had on Matilda’s opening night, the feeling of overcoming joy, and everyone who stuck by my side with Matilda screamed for the last time, “WE DID IT!!!”

We are planing on doing a show of the summer of 2027.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Well it has had a bunch of ups and downs here and there. Something that has never failed me is the support from my friends and family sticking by my side throughout these years.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I create live theatre from my Livingroom! We are known for the great quality of theatre in such a small theatre space. And how good our shows are. We are set apart from others is that it’s fully teen run. Everyone on the production team is a teen. And were also in a Livingroom!

Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
Audition by Michal Shertlif.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sites.google.com/view/livingroomproductions/home?authuser=0&utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio&fbclid=PAcGRvZgJleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA85MzY2MTk3NDMzOTI0NTkAAafgT4sgayLWnZAGQwWPhoMfEHFdlSxNQtFyR3Qf-VX-hwL-9-zVwoWo6rqlAw_aem_EZEUQ9IrILNoZaHvFdpnQg
• Instagram: Livingroom_Productions_
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Livingroom_Productions