Jenny's Profile

In the fall of 1965, nine year-old Steven Coombs had never met anyone quite like his substitute teacher, Mrs. White. Unbeknownst to Mrs. White when she asked her students to take part in a school play was that this single act would become a defining moment in Steven’s life, allowing him to taste theater life for the first time.
Years later, Steven became reacquainted with theater through his high school drama teacher, Jean Emerson. She was “inspiring” as Steven recalls. And more importantly, she was the instigating force that drove him to the life he now leads today, as a manager of a box office at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst’s Fine Arts Center, and avid theatrical performer.
Born in Vermont on August 2nd, 1956, Steven spent his “wonder bread years” on his family’s dairy farm in Hardwick, Massachusetts. With the exception of his liberal third grade teacher, Mrs. White, Steven led a fairly sheltered life in his small town of 300 people. It was not until 1967 when he and his family moved to the town of Orleans on Massachusetts’ Cape Cod that he became exposed to a world of exciting possibilities.
When he graduated from Nauset Regional High School he decided to try his luck as a college student at St. Lawrence University in upstate New York. After his first year there he came to the conclusion that college was not for him and moved back to the Cape to work at a local theater as a student, performer, and apprentice. Then, in 1978, he decided to give it the old college try one last time, and enrolled at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (UMASS) as a theater major. He graduated in 1981 and six months later went to work for the UMASS Fine Arts Center’s box office as assistant manager.
Today, at age 48, he lives in Northampton, Massachusetts and is the manager of the same box office. He has spent the past 20 odd years performing for local theater groups, teaching classes at UMASS and working as the Stage Director at the UMASS Fine Arts Center.