Returning home revitalized: Rachae Thomas tells her story in a one-night cabaret show

Lonelier than she had ever been, Spokane native Rachae Thomas roller skated on the marble in her front yard, timing her jumps with the Disney songs she was belting, performing for her family’s maid, common in Kuwait. In her isolation, Thomas realized she was a performer.

Everything since then has been part of the journey: returning to Spokane, going off to college and then Hollywood to pursue her dreams, performing in star-studded theater, television and movies, falling in love, getting married, and becoming a mother. Through it all, she has stayed true to the little girl creating her own ice capades. Now she’s returned to Spokane, and she’s bringing all of that to her cabaret show “Rachae Re-Vitalize Me” on Saturday at Hamilton Studios.

But back to Thomas roller skating: she was attending fifth grade at an American institute in Kuwait. Her mother had remarried to a Kuwaiti man, and they moved to his country for work. The people surrounding Thomas spoke Arabic, including the maid.

“It was just me and the maid. We couldn’t speak a lick of English to each other, but she would give me a thumbs-up,” Thomas said, laughing.

Her time in Kuwait was short-lived; her family moved back to the U.S. after six months, this time to Spokane Valley. Thomas was used to being different before the move. Her mother is Italian, and her father is Black. Now she felt set apart further, with her Kuwaiti stepfather and Muslim faith.

“I was very aware of the difference, and I was proud of it, too,” Thomas said. “… The level of otherness is pretty deep – not that it stopped me at all in anything. I had good parents who raised me to be independent and resilient.”

While attending East Valley High School, Thomas met then-choir director Laurie Wittrock.

“She was just a rock,” Thomas said. “She saw talent and she just was authentic and pushed me to make sure I focused on that.”

Wittrock’s first impression of Thomas was her warm smile, warm heart and eagerness to learn.

“She definitely had a passion for singing and that spread to all the girls that were in the group at the time,” Wittrock said. “They all loved her.”

Thomas attended theater camps through Spokane Civic Theatre, where she first met Jake Schaefer, then a camp participant, now the executive director.

“I was enraptured by her,” Schaefer said of meeting Thomas when they were teenagers. “Her voice sounds like cream tastes – that’s how she sounds – and she’s always been the most beautiful, and we quickly became friends.”

Schaefer said the two had the similar taste in music and spirit. They made a pact to act in Los Angeles, and whoever got there first would help the other.

Thomas’ talent became clear in her portrayal of Cinderella in the East Valley production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Cinderella.”

“She rose to that occasion,” Wittrock said. “She was stunning on stage. A spark was lit.”

For Thomas, this part was a revelation.

“That was mind-blowing because I realized you could sing and do this acting thing, because I was always an actor, too,” Thomas said.

Thomas said during this period she was building a strong sense of self from her music and theater accomplishments, but also in the grounding from her family and the values they instilled in her. Though Thomas is no longer Muslim, she drew a lot of discipline from the religion when she was younger, because of the awareness of being part of something bigger than herself.

Thanks in large part to her mother’s influence, she enrolled at Western Washington University.

“She was always grounding me to make sure I wasn’t just a dreamer,” Thomas said. “I needed to do grounded things, like go to college first.”

At Western, Thomas had to choose between the music and theater departments. She chose music and at the time there was a push for opera, which Thomas had a skill for – in fact, Wittrock recalled when Thomas was a senior, she made it to the state solo competition, which was mostly operatic singing. But Thomas felt a disconnect with her peers.

“I was left feeling out of the loop,” Thomas said. “It was almost like people had this second language that wasn’t just music, but it was a cultural second language in the music department at Western.”

Thomas felt that the classical training was changing her voice.

“Your voice connects you to who you are,” Thomas said. “I felt my voice changing, and I felt like I was going to be structured in a way that was not who I am.”

The experience was isolating, but Thomas is thankful that she connected with the Ethnic Student Center.

“I needed those glasses,” Thomas said. “I didn’t see many Black people or people of color singing classical music, and for me, that mattered. I had to search for those people in creating my repertoire.”

She also befriended Madeline McNeill, another Spokane native, though the two didn’t cross paths growing up. McNeill is a musical artist with a multidisciplinary approach that includes composing and directing shows, and focuses on the connection between mind and body.

“I was in awe of her,” McNeill said of her time at Western. “I thought she had a fantastic voice, a beautiful, soulful quality and connection. She was able to connect her voice to the music and communicate beautifully the lyrics to everyone listening.”

But Thomas felt pulled in a different direction. Jim Lortz, then a professor in the college of fine and performing arts at Western, encouraged Thomas to come to the theater department.

“I had so much curiosity for acting,” Thomas said.

Wittrock remembers getting lunch with Thomas at Azteca in the Spokane Valley Mall during a school break. Thomas told Wittrock about switching to theater.

“She was scared to tell me, and I was like, ‘Alright, that’s fine. You know, it’s OK. You need to follow your heart,’ ” Wittrock said.

She transferred to Fairhaven College, which allowed her to study both simultaneously. She ended up with a theater major and a music minor.

Following graduation, Thomas moved to Seattle to pursue a relationship for about six months.

“Jake (Schaefer) had a real heart-to-heart with me when I was in Seattle,” Thomas said.

Schaefer was already living in Los Angeles, and he upheld their Spokane Civic Theatre summer camp pledge. Thomas moved in soon after. Within six months, she was cast as the lead Sarah in “Ragtime,” playing at Hudson Backstage.

“I watched her take off and develop her acting point of view and her artist voice,” Schaefer said.

From “Ragtime,” Thomas got her first agent. She was telling her agent she wanted to do television.

“I always knew that it was going to work out, one, and I always knew that my way for it to work out was to be authentically me,” Thomas said. “There was a lot of noise around me. There was a lot of this, you should this, that, this, that, this, straighten your hair, do this. Go for the Black role … No. I set all that stuff aside and knew those two things, and so all I had to do was work on me.”

Thomas’ first TV role threw her into the deep end immediately. She filmed a trailer for the first scene of the HBO show “The Carpet Brothers” with David Spade and Will Ferrell.

“Here I am off the streets and now in this space with these people … Total green, probably shouldn’t have been in the show, but I felt super afraid, like you don’t know how to do this,” Thomas said.

Thomas said she did beat herself up internally for this experience, but she also took it as an opportunity to seek out more training, mentorship and experience so she could hone her craft.

“I had a strong hustle – finding the right classes and sticking to them,” Thomas said.

Her next big opportunity took the shape of a play, “Neighbors,” written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, and “about Black relations and racism in America,” Thomas said.

“It was a script that I understood,” Thomas said. “That script felt like breathing. I started to understand my wheelhouse, the things that are like scripts that are good for you, the ones that are like, oh yeah, this is part of your story.”

Thomas got her next agent out of that play, from the actor who played her father.

“That’s how it works,” Thomas said. “You work with people and they’re like, ‘Dude, you should meet my agent.’ That’s professionalism.”

Next, Thomas booked the TV show “Lie to Me,” where she got to work with John Amos, best known for his role as Kunta Kinte in the miniseries “Roots.”

“That was incredible,” Thomas said. “That experience revitalized my confidence. It was good work.”

Thomas’ only issue was she hadn’t mastered the audition at that point. She also had a relationship that ended, which helped her refocus on her acting.

“It was one of those things where it was like the right track, wrong train,” Thomas said. She first heard that comparison from her husband, Ernesto, when they first met. Thomas said he’s in denial of this, but the two met on Tinder.

“I’ve always been a very ‘let’s get to the point’ kind of person,” Thomas said. She and her now husband wanted the same things.

Thomas was constantly working, and received a role in “Life of a King,” a movie starring Cuba Gooding Jr. The preparation for the movie was fast-paced.

“Cuba Gooding Jr. was great, but like definitely dealing with his own demons,” Thomas said. She said he was frequently hitting on Thomas, who was playing his daughter in the movie.

After that role, others came more easily. Instead of a guest star, Thomas started receiving recurring guest star spots, such as her part in “Hand of God.”

“The creator of the show was just such an advocate and a fan of my work, so that made me feel good,” Thomas said. “And, being on set with Ron Perlman who was also friends with my acting coach was great and I got some tips from him. That was really, really hard work because I had to be a techie, which if you knew me, I’m anything but a techie.”

From there, she had a role on “Casual,” a Hulu show, as well as “The Fosters.” She also started getting back into theater.

“I finally get a call for freaking ‘Hamilton’ and it’s for the replacement on Broadway, and I get called back,” Thomas said.

The role up for grabs is Maria, and Thomas knows this would be a complete career game-changer.

“I get in that audition room and my freaking voice cracks, and I just feel so heartbroken,” Thomas said.

Not long after, Thomas became pregnant with her first child, and had to back out of a deal to be a singer on a cruise ship. After having her child, her agent got her an audition for one of the network showcases. Thomas was just starting to feel like she could be both a mother and have her professional life. Then, the pandemic hit.

At the time, her family was living in a one-bedroom apartment. At first, they went to live with her husband’s mother. After a year, they decided it made more sense to move back to Spokane to be close to Thomas’ family.

“We’ve got a good rent, good community,” Thomas said. “My family’s here, my mom and sister help with the kids, so that I can get back out there and stay warm as a performer and eventually figure out how I’m going to execute my career again.”

Schaefer was thrilled when she moved back to Spokane, and told her that Civic was holding auditions for a play she would be great in: “Good People.” Schaefer didn’t have any say in how the play was cast, but hoped Thomas would find a role, which she did as Kate.

“She just has a way of moving and saying lines as if they’re hers,” Schaefer said. “This is called acting, by the way, I don’t mean to reduce acting. But that’s what acting is and it’s just amazing to see. It was awesome to have her back.”

Thomas is also a teacher for Civic, bringing her story with Schaefer full circle. Thomas credits another friend from her past – McNeill – with helping her to get connected to the creative community.

“I reconnected with her every time I’d come to visit to Spokane, and I had mentioned to her that we’re thinking of moving here and I’d love to be connected to the creative community,” Thomas said.

McNeill recalled meeting with Thomas during one of the visits, and Thomas was attending Terrain later in the evening.

“I gave her a little bit of what I was experiencing because for me coming back to Spokane, it was unexpected, but it was actually great because I grew as an artist here and didn’t grow as an artist in a big city,” McNeill said.

When Thomas moved back, McNeill introduced Thomas to Jim Frank, CEO of Greenstone Corporation. Frank underwrote McNeill’s show at Hamilton Studio on Feb. 24, and is doing the same for Thomas.

“Our philosophy as a developer is arts are an essential component to a resilient, stable neighborhood, and particularly in West Central where there’s so many artists,” Frank said. Frank thinks the Hamilton Studio is a wonderful venue and “it just takes time when you’re doing something new and for them, this is a new venture.”

Don Hamilton, co-owner of Hamilton Studio, is thrilled to have Thomas performing in his space.

“We’ve had her and her pianist come in and record a promotional thing and she has stunning pipes,” Hamilton said. “The idea that she’s going to bring this theatricality with her musical chops into the Hamilton Studio Listening Room, it is going to be fabulous.”

Of the songs Thomas is performing Saturday, one is from “Ragtime,” from her first gig in LA, and another is from “Hamilton.”

“I know that your growth doesn’t come from staying comfortable,” Thomas said. “So when I had the opportunity to do something and it was this show … I said, ‘OK, what do I need? Well, I need to remember and revitalize, right?’

“And so the point of these songs are one, they’re all in my repertoire and/or they’re in my audition book. The point is to be present to those songs and have it re-energize and revitalize me.”