Outstanding supporting actor in a stage drama

COLUMBIA BASIN - The Bob Jasman you meet offstage doesn't sound anything like the Bob Jasman you see onstage.

Onstage, Jasman often plays zany, excitable characters, while in person, he is quite soft-spoken and appears to border on the shy side.

"One co-worker told me, 'I couldn't believe it was you up there. It was amazing, you were so mean,'" Jasman remembered.

The role was Ebenezer Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol."

"I said, 'Well, it was just a part,'" Jasman said. "She said, 'Yeah, I had to think to myself, you're not really like that.' People are always, they can't believe that it's me up there. It's totally different."

Jasman said he doesn't know how to explain the phenomenon.

"It's just something that happens when you're up there and you're under a certain pressure or fear, I don't know, or a combination," he said. "You want to do your best, so it just kinds of evolves out of you. They see me at work or whatever, then I'm up there, and it's like, 'Who is that person?'"

Jasman was born in Spokane but resided in Wilson Creek from the time of his birth. His family moved to Moses Lake in 1960, to be closer to the land they were farming.

Jasman left the Columbia Basin to attend Washington State University, and lived in Wenatchee for five and a half years.

Jasman works in Othello at Columbia Basin Health Association as a laboratory technician, testing patient samples and providing answers for providers to make a diagnosis.

"They say we're involved in about 70 percent of the decision-making a doctor has with a patient," Jasman said.

In high school, Jasman was active in the sciences, which is how he got started in his career.

"It makes a difference in people's lives, we help (the doctors) find out what's wrong with them, if we are able to ascertain that," he said. "We are helping people, so it's rewarding that you can make a difference like that."

Jasman wasn't ever involved in theater in high school or college. He had some stage experience as a musician in a band, but he wasn't certain it would be enough when he decided to audition for a part opposite guest celebrity Joe Namath in a Big Bend Community College production of "Li'l Abner."

"I saw it in the paper and thought, 'OK, maybe I should go to that,'" Jasman recalled. "I followed the Jets when he was on their team."

Jasman's mother also urged him to try out, and he was called in to do a reading and offered a part.

"Luckily I didn't have any lines, or I would have been in big trouble," Jasman remembered with a laugh. "I felt, 'Well, OK, I can get through this.'"

Jasman moved away to Wenatchee after that to work at the local clinic. He'd had a good experience in Moses Lake onstage, but never got up the nerve to try out for the Wenatchee theater.

When he returned to Moses Lake, Jasman returned to the stage. With Soap Lake's Masquers Theater, he has been in every musical and occasionally winds up in up to three plays per year.

"You get better and sometimes it's encouraging, it gets a little better," he explained. "It's a lot of work, but at the same time, the reward is pretty good. Just greeting people after the show or sometimes you walk in a store or just off the street and somebody will yell your name and say, 'Hey, good job in that play!' You go, 'Oh! All right, that was pretty nice.'"

Jasman appreciates audience members who attend the plays, which heighten the performances of the cast onstage and push them to do even better.

"Sometimes you actually surprise yourself, how well you can do," he said. "It's a lot of work, but that makes it worthwhile."

Jasman notes he's only played one leading part, as Scrooge, but he might be more comfortable with supporting characters.

"I can go either way," he said. "At this point, I've got enough experience I feel I could handle the bigger parts if I have to. If I get offered or I audition, it's certainly something I would probably end up doing. I wouldn't say no."

When he's not working or acting, Jasman is a watercolor, landscape and still life artist, although lately he's been looking for the opportunity to get back into the hobby after being so "caught up" in the theater in the last few years.

Married since 2002 to wife Mary, who works in the lab at Samaritan Healthcare, Jasman still plays the guitar and the harmonica for his church in Othello.

He also likes to bake candy.

"I've done applets and cotlets," he said, noting his great-uncle used to work at a Cashmere factory.

Jasman modified the recipe after less-than-desirable results out of a cookbook, but said they're still not as good as store-bought. He also makes mints and tried to make licorice.

"It turned out OK, but it adds oil, so it takes a long time for it to dry," he said. "It's not too hard to make, but it takes a while to harden."

Jasman said he draws his inspirations and ideas from above and God.

"I have to give thanks to him for letting me be able to do this, and be able to do as well as I can, the best the way I can," he said.