In a case of the stage colliding with life, Chase Stubblefield tackles a role with a deeply personal connection in ‘Good Night, Oscar’

Pictured: “Good Night, Oscar” imagines a fictional appearance by Oscar Levant (played by Chase Stubblefield) on Jack Paar’s “Tonight Show.” The late-night host is played by Gordon Moore.

‘Only option’

The famous Gershwin song “Rhapsody in Blue” initially interested Stubblefield in “Good Night, Oscar.” In the play’s climax, Levant plays the piece in a disheveled state with manic intensity. It’s a moment that manages to both score a triumph for Levant and signal his breakdown.

Stubblefield – who began piano lessons at age 4 and continued through his years at Buchanan High School – said George Gershwin’s signature work pulled him into its emotion and dynamism from the first time he seriously listened to it in 2024. He began to memorize and practice the piece months before auditioning for “Good Night, Oscar.”

“I wanted to be the only option for J. Daniel [Herring] when he cast the play,” Stubblefield said. After winning the role, he went one step further: Volunteering the use of the baby grand piano he played at home. It was moved from his parents’ house to the theater.

“Rhapsody in Blue” is a complex piece, and Stubblefield plays it from memory for nearly 15 minutes. As Levant, his hands tremble as he prepares to touch the keys, prodded mercilessly by an apparition of Gershwin (Joshua Shadle for GCP), who died two decades before the play’s 1958 time frame.

Renee Newlove, who plays Levant’s wife, June, said she’s heard the piece multiple times since rehearsals started in May, and, she added, “I can honestly say that it’s a joy to listen and watch Chase play. The phrasing he commands in this piece makes me cry every time.”

Every day – including the days when the show isn’t performed – Stubblefield sits at the baby grand in an empty 2nd Space. He practices “Rhapsody in Blue” as light and darkness mix to throw shadows across the stage. Playing it from memory in the second act can be scary. “I’m sometimes freaking out during intermission and thinking, ‘I’m going to go out there and go blank.’ ”

That hasn’t happened.

He added: “I’m just so grateful for this opportunity to combine two of my biggest passions: Acting and piano playing. It’s amazing.”

Pictured: Stubblefield, center, plays Oscar Levant in “Good Night, Oscar” at the 2nd Space Theatre. Also in this scene: Jayvaughn Stern Jr. and Renee Newlove.

Recovery, relapse

The script for “Good Night, Oscar” is built around Levant appearing on “The Tonight Show” with host Jack Paar (Gordon Moore). The play’s storyline is fictional, though based on Levant’s real appearances on Paar’s show. Stubblefield had never heard of either Levant or Paar but found that the script presented Levant as a compelling character.

Levant dealt with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), severe anxiety, manic depression (bipolar disorder), schizophrenia, and auditory/visual hallucinations. In addition, he was addicted to prescription painkillers and sedatives, and he was treated with electroshock therapy. Yet he could appear with Paar as a witty, though controversial, guest.

Stubblefield said that he is diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and major depression, and that self-medication has led to addiction to a hard drug.

Intelligent and expecting a lot of himself, he graduated in 2011 from the University of California, Berkeley with degrees in mathematics and computer science and began work as a software engineer in San Francisco. But Stubblefield said, “The big city life wasn’t for me.” Stress led to anxiety, and he returned to Fresno in 2014. “Partly, it was to get back into theater. I knew that would make me happier than living in San Francisco.”

Stubblefield described the next period of his life – from 2014 to 2022 – as “a failure to launch.” He worked sporadically as a software engineer and taught piano in Fresno, finding some sense of accomplishment but not achieving the career success he had once envisioned. He said he can understand Levant’s lament that he never realized his potential. “I think Oscar felt he had the talent to be super successful but there were aspects of his circumstances and personality that got in the way. I think that happened to me.”

Beginning in mid-2022, he said, he turned to heavy drug use to cope with work pressures and the pressure he put on himself. The drugs produced a euphoria (“I felt super human”) and improved his focus and productivity, but led to work-related behavior that resulted in being fired from a software job.

Meanwhile, theater was a welcome refuge. In the years after Stubblefield came back from San Francisco, he played mostly secondary roles in more than a dozen GCP plays and also performed for other Valley theater companies.

In 2023, he delivered two performances he’s most proud of. He said he wasn’t using drugs when he played Cinderella’s Prince and the Wolf in “Into the Woods” for Madera Theatre Project. But he had relapsed later that year when cast in “Seminar,” a Fresno State production about a brutally candid writing seminar instructor (as an understudy, he performed the lead role once).

Stubblefield cycled through several periods of recovery followed by relapse. He said it caused important relationships to crumble, and he experienced in-patient rehabilitation plus separate stays in a sober-living house and a rundown shelter. In 2024, he said, a relapse led to homelessness and then a friend invited him to Seattle to try to break the cycle.

He lived for 10 months in Seattle, where he worked as a store clerk. “Coming back to Fresno, I had a year of living drug free,” Stubblefield said. He got another software job, but he didn’t last. He said he was fired, again, for performance issues caused by drug use. “Things happen sometimes when you’re on top of the world and everything’s going great. You’re also very vulnerable, and I stumbled again.”

Stubblefield said he got clean because of a commitment to “Good Night, Oscar,” which opened on June 26. He said that he’s once again getting treatment but that professional help is only part of what he needs. “Theater is my anti-drug. It is my therapist. It is my sponsor. It is my recovery program.”

His current recovery includes living in a group home where residents are working on sobriety. The fact that Stubblefield leaves a treatment-related residence for his performances in “Good Night, Oscar” underscores another parallel to the storyline in the play: Levant is on a four-hour pass from a mental hospital when he appears on “The Tonight Show.”

‘Relief’

Looking ahead, Stubblefield said he wants to stay in Fresno, find work as a computer engineer, get a place of his own and continue with theater. “I want to stay focused on recovery instead of getting complacent,” he said. “Any successes I encounter do not mean that I have any more control over my addiction. And I need to always have theater in my life.”

But that is the future. The present is “Good Night, Oscar.”

Stubblefield’s approach to playing Levant is built on restraint. He isn’t attempting an imitation (clips of Levant with Paar are available online), and he isn’t trying to copy the performance of Sean Hayes, who won a Tony Award in 2023 for playing Levant (clips also are online). “Oscar is just an intriguing character, and I want to bring a multifaceted, complex character to life,” Stubblefield said. “I’m trying to make him a real person.”

Director J. Daniel Herring said he asked all the actors in “Good Night, Oscar” to bring to their performances whatever connections they feel to their characters. Herring knows about Stubblefield’s mental health and addiction issues, and, he said, Stubblefield captures the many sides of Levant. The desperate craving for drugs. A moment of vulnerability about loved ones. Being taken over by mental illness and also fighting back.

Herring said theater can become therapy for actors, directors and others involved in a production. “You get relief because you get to address something painful in your life and put it out there for other people to see.”

Dan Pessano, GCP’s managing director, was in the audience last weekend and reacted emotionally to Stubblefield’s performance. He’s aware of Stubblefield’s mental health and addiction issues. “Chase has been extraordinary the entire run,” Pessano said. “But on Sunday, he kicked ass. There were a couple of points in ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ where it was just so emotional. I knew that it was a release for him.”

Pessano was so moved that he cried.

Pictured: In a 2017 production of Neil Simon’s “Fools” at the 2nd Space Theatre, Stubblefield, left, and Alex Vaux starred in a bouncy comedy. Stubblefield has appeared in more than a dozen productions at the theater.

‘I love it’

Stubblefield’s performance earned high praise from Heather Parish, a veteran theater reviewer for The Munro Review who is not routinely effusive. Parish wrote:

“Stubblefield fully comes into his talent as a character actor as Levant, showing someone using performance as both fodder for and escape from his demons. The fact that Stubblefield is also a gifted pianist allows the play’s climax to land as fully as possible. His rousing playing at the keys caps a robust performance as a whole, channeling the pain of Levant’s failures, wishes, and deep wounds into a moment that feels genuinely transcendent.”

At the beginning of my reporting process – over iced teas at the Tower cafe – I read those words to Stubblefield. He looks away, and when I finish, he says quietly: “I love it.” But my aim isn’t to flatter him.

I want to know how he channels Levant’s pain, wounds and hopes to achieve a level of performance that comes around only so often in community theater.

Stubblefield bravely answers that question, and then all the others I ask so he can tell this story – his story.

The Munro Review has no paywall but is financially supported by readers who believe in its non-profit mission of bringing professional arts journalism to the central San Joaquin Valley. You can help by signing up for a monthly recurring paid membership or make a one-time donation of as little as $3. All memberships and donations are tax-deductible.