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18 FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | JULY 2016 FOUR SEASONS SPOTLIGHT By Leighton McLaughlin On October 28 this year, the Four Seasons Performing Arts Club will present Love and Marriage. The show was written by and will be produced and directed by Four Seasons resident Michael Rothberg. He got in to "show biz" not by years and years of studying and practicing and performing, from a very young age. No. He just wanted to escape Army mess halls. "When you join the military they give you a battery of tests so that they can make the best use of your skills for the betterment of the Army. They told me I had the highest score ever on the Army language aptitude test. I was thinking — all right! Army Language School! The Presidio of Monterrey! "They made me a cook. "Eight weeks at Fort Ord: Up at 3 every day; clean, scrub, cook, scrub, clean, cook. They cook by the recipe. One recipe is for 100 men. If have 123 men, you cook 1.23 recipes. I became very disenchanted with the Army." Just prior to the Army, Rothberg had spent about six months in Spain studying flamenco guitar. He also traveled to France and Germany and very much liked Europe. "I just wanted to go back to Germany so I joined the Army," he said. "They graciously assigned me, as a cook, to an Army Engineer base in Butzbach. To compound my misery I arrived there in January during the coldest winter in 100 years." But some unseen force was looking out for Rothberg. Due to the fluke chance that he took typing in junior high school and that the Signal Corps S3 clerk on the base was rotating back to the U.S., Rothberg became the temporary S3 clerk. "A temporary reprieve." Then came the All Army Entertainment Contest. "It was kind of like America's Got Talent," he said, "a contest throughout the entire Army. Level 1 starting with each base, then area, region, etc… up to the finals. He entered the first level (One never knows when cooking might rear it's head). "How many other flamenco guitarists could there be in Butzbach?" he asked. "I won, of course." The Roadsiders (because we met and joined forces at the Heidelberg Roadside Playhouse) L-R: Michael Rothberg, Barb Goldman, and Mike Pevzner perform in Germany Mess Hall Escapee Graces Four Seasons Stage