When asked to describe the onstage experience of acting in the play “The Fantastiks” in 2011, Spanish Assistant Professor Juli (Jake) Caceres Garcia says, “It was like being the character of a book and becoming alive in a splash. It was like being in a pop-up book but with real people.”

Theater, music and dance became a part of Caceres Garcia’s life at an early age.

At the age of seven, without fully understanding what was happening, he stood on a stage for the first time before an audience of 2,500 people. He was taking part in a semi-professional project as a child stage actor. The only reason he participated in this project was because the production needed young children for several roles.

“It captivated me in many ways, so I started doing things here and there in theater,” says Caceres Garcia. “I soon discovered music, so I quickly shifted to music, but theater was something that I always wanted to explore later on.”

Throughout adolescence, Caceres Garcia gave priority to his music studies. He began to play the cello and eventually performed professionally.

“I became a cellist and I was making money playing the cello,” says Caceres Garcia, “but then [I] had to play many things that [I didn’t] want to play and do things that [I didn’t] want to do, so part of the magic went away.”

Caceres Garcia eventually decided to only play cello as a hobby.

For Caceres Garcia, acting is something magical. He believes that in order to maintain this magic, acting is something that should be done for the love of doing it and not for money. For this reason, he has not considered pursuing a career as a full-time actor.

In 2011, after a long time without acting, Caceres Garcia participated in the musical play “The Fantastiks” as the character of El Gallo. Caceres Garcia was initially interested in the character of a mute but was instead assigned the narrator role.

“[El Gallo] is a really involved character with long songs, and I was terrified,” says Caceres Garcia. “However, I worked with really professional people and it was an amazing experience.”

Caceres Garcia has participated in plays such as Peter Pan and Evita. He says that one day he would like to play Albin from the play “La Cage dux Folles” and Molina from the play “Kiss of the Spiderwoman” because the roles would be very different from what he has done so far.

“I have always played the very manly roles, so I think I would like to go the other way,” says Caceres Garcia.

For now, Caceres Garcia is devoting all of his energy to adapting to his new life in Wisconsin as well as to his job at Lakeland College, but he is already planning on getting involved in acting projects in the community.