Shall I compare thee to a summer's day, Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's leaves have all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair, from fair, sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed.
Thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor will his possession of that fair thou o'est,
Nor shall death brag thou wondrous in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest,
So long as men can breathe and eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
All the world's a stage, And all men and women merely players.
They have their exits and entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts.
His acts be in seven ages. At first the infant, Muelling and puking in the nurse's arms,
Then the whining schoolboy with his satchel, And shiny morning face creeping like snail,
Unwillingly in school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad, Ate at his mistress's eyebrow,
Then his soldier, full of strange bodes, And bearded like the pardon,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble,
Reputation, even in the cannon's mouth.
And then the justice, in fair round belly, With good cape and mind,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances,
So he plays his part.
The sixth age shifts into the lean and slivered pantalon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose well saved, a world too wide,
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again towards childish treble, Pipes and whistles in his sound.
The last scene of all, that ends the strange eventful history,
His second childishness and mere oblivion, Son's teeth, son's eyes, son's taste, son's everything.
Come, gentle knight, come loving black brown knight, Give me my Romeo, and when he shall die,
Take him and cut him up in little stars, And he shall make the face of heaven so fine,
That all the world will be in love with knight, And pay no worship to the garish son.
To be or not to be, that is the question,
Whether it is no blur in the mind, To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing anything, to die, to sleep, no more.
And by a sleep to say we end the heartache, And the thousand natural shocks that pleasures
Heard to, it is a consummation devoutly to be with, to die, to sleep, to sleep for chance to dream,
The undiscovered country from whose born no traveler returns.
A win in disgrace with fortune in men's eyes, I, all alone, aweep my outcast state,
In troubled death heaven with my woundless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more richly hope, Featured like him, like him, with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented these.
Yet in these thoughts, myself almost despising, Happily I think on thee, and then I see it,
Like the lark at break of day from shining from solid earth, Seeming skirmish at heaven's gate,
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth grates, That there is more to change my state of case.
If you're going to take on this, then you better have one of these. It's a killer-looking truck
for three ten a month, only three hundred ten bucks for alerted Ranger 4x4 Supercab.
I call it Ford Ranger XLT, you call it. Today, Alan and Anna bought their first Maytag,
and they'll give it a spin for the first time. Pretty soon they'll see a lot of lace and frills
in soft pink, somewhat unexpectedly. From the ashes of an ancient empire, great blocks of energy
Rise from the earth, noble ox, forces of good and evil.
Okay so you're driving around in a beat-up pickup listening to the chiefs game hoping they don't
kick and hoping that the duct tape holding on the tailgate's gonna stick when in a fourth and
eight the coat hanger you have for an antenna falls out. So you jam it back in just in time
to hear the announcer dude say game over man. When the time is right for champagne,
the sparkling stars of Chandon rise to the occasion. Chandon Napa Valley, brute, made memorable.
Hi kids, this is Chucky Cheese from Chucky Cheese Pizza and I'm here to tell you how you can have
the birthday party of a lifetime. The Subaru Chaser is a great car for chasing around town
or for chasing down a bargain or for chasing girls and catching them. So I really love it here at
Big Boy, the way the salads are always crispy and they've got all my favorites. Love your spaghetti.
Yeah, Big Boy is my kind of restaurant. I love you. I love you. I love you. And you. And you. And you.
And you. We love you. Our Big Boy. Are we done yet?
Rocco was named after Saint Roc, the patron saint of dogs. So it isn't surprising that he grew up
with a trusty Saint Bernard by his side. By the way, Dalvera translates from the truth
and he certainly was true, true to himself and to his talents. Rocco began his professional
life as a child actor, cast in Oliver. Now the Oliver story concerns an orphan and Rocco's mom
and dad were both orphaned. His grandfather, Rogero, a star violinist in Italy, was asked
to join the San Francisco Symphony. Rogero made the long journey only to lose his right arm in
the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Without a way to make a living, he had to put Rocco's dad,
Roger, up for adoption. Now for Rocco, the city of San Francisco and the art of music
would cross his path again, only in a much brighter and happier way.
He was brought up Catholic, a boy soprano in the church choir. Rocco was, not surprisingly,
a highly motivated child.
Rocco held the distinction of being the youngest person to achieve the rank of eagle scout
in the Boy Scouts of America. Oh, on one extremely difficult hike, both of his arches fell.
The painful experience actually made for two feet that could point, in toeshoes, better than most,
something that later proved helpful in getting into a professional ballet company.
Being the super-achiever he was, one high school just wasn't enough for Rocco Dalvera.
He went to two high schools, simultaneously. Rocco was captain of the debate team and taught
himself how to juggle and to ride a five-foot tall unicycle, both at the same time.
Among his many young achievements, Rocco was a member of Mensa. Rocco went on to dance
for the San Diego Ballet, as well as for Lawrence Wilkes Touring Company, and he was even a backup
dancer for Pia Zadora. He was a magician and worked for David Copperfield and Mark Wilson,
taking their magic shows on tour. Rocco also did improv with names like Robin Williams,
Michael Keaton, and John Ritter. Rocco loved playing the straight man, and they love the
fact that Rocco never broke character. Eventually, Rocco did find time to study musical theater in
college and thrived in Los Angeles as a voice artist, looping hundreds of films and TV shows,
from the clicking language in The Gods Must Be Crazy, to the melting Nazi screams at the end of
Raiders of the Lost Ark. Rocco found he was drawn to dialogue coaching for film and TV actors in
LA, all a part of the puzzle of making a living in that competitive city. He was self-taught,
and he researched the topic heavily, putting together the beginnings of a coaching profession.
The American Academy of Dramatic Arts hired him to teach voice, which opened a brand new
door, shifting him away from what he saw as a possibly self-centered life and show business,
to a life focused outward. After meeting Denise in Los Angeles, a courtship began a few years later,
all because of an episode of The Dating Game. Denise was from the San Francisco Bay Area.
I told you I'd bring that back. She and Rocco were married in Seattle and then moved to Oregon,
where Rocco began building a professional life that included teaching at Willamette University.
Later, Rocco sought an MFA from the National Theater Conservatory at the Denver Center for
the Performing Arts, while at the same time he was co-authoring Voice on Stage and Off with
Robert Barton. That little collaboration of that book has become the standard for voice training
in over 600 colleges and universities. Rocco's final writing collaboration was acting in musical
theater with Joe Deere. Rocco also co-hosted the award-winning series Healthward Bound,
a lifelong journey for PBS. Hi, I'm Rocco Del Vera, and I'm Brooke Summers. Welcome to
Healthward Bound, a lifelong journey. In previous episodes, we watched as a group of physicians
and other medical professionals assembled a body called human. It was on the recommendation of
Cecily Berry, the queen of voice and speech educators that Rocco came to Ohio to head the
acting and brand new musical theater programs at Wright State University. There are so many
documents, images, and newspaper clippings as evidence of Rocco's mother, Polly's unending
pride in her Rocco. Rocco was a proud brother to his big sister Anne, who's a rock star in her own
right, as one of four women to trek across Antarctica on skis and with no dog sleds,
a forest ranger, and steward to the planet, Anne is someone Rocco admired. Spending the
largest part of his career here at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music,
the place Rocco would call his home.
Hi, I'm Joe Deer, and I had the great pleasure of calling Rocco Del Vera my friend and collaborator
for 20 years. It's an honor to speak here at this University that Rocco was so proud to be a part of
among his colleagues and students and his family, whom he loved so much.
In every friendship there are roles. In ours, Rocco was the sage, and I was the clown.
We laughed a lot, and I like to think I've provided some comic relief. Most of the time,
that really involved me acting like a 12-year-old boy and Rocco laughing like a 13-year-old boy.
But there's a place for that. As I look around here, I see people from so many parts of Rocco's
huge network of friends and professional associates, students, columns, and many fields.
That video we just saw is just the tip of the creative iceberg that was his career.
It's a little exhausting to look at that, isn't it? This guy was 61 years old, and he didn't sleep
clearly. Each of us thinks of Rocco as being exceptional in our field. We are all selfish in
that way. It's easy to forget that during just the last two decades, since he came to Ohio,
he followed his curiosity and passion to become one of the most successful voice coaches in America's
premier regional theaters, advising on classical texts and accents, vocal violence, and the album
method of emotions where he became a celebrated master teacher. Many of us in this room studied
with him for that. And that curiosity also led him to get a parallel career working with corporate
executives on communication skills from some of the nation's top companies. As the video said,
I'm proud that he also co-authored a book with me called Acting in Musical Theatre.
Just a few days after his death, we found out that that book is going to be translated into
another language, Italian, which is just fantastic and horribly ironic, because wouldn't he have
loved to go to Italy and teach? And we, Rocco and I were invited to go to South Korea to teach
there as well. We might put that one on hold for a little while. So his legacy lives on.
At the heart of all of this though, Rocco was a teacher who cared deeply about his students
and would do whatever he could to help them. When he saw enough gifted students struggling with
performance anxiety, Rocco chose to study hypnosis in order to help relieve that pressure. He rarely
spoke of it, but in a pinch he could offer relief to those students who needed that kind of help.
And when former students asked him to officiate at their weddings, he became an ordained minister,
so he could honor that request. And he was just beginning his newest area of study in
mindfulness training here at UC to assist student arts in making healthier decisions when dealing
with the pressures of college and life and beginning the kinds of careers that our students do.
Each slice of that eclectic pie would form the entirety of most people's career. So this wide
ranging resume asks, begs me to ask this question, what unified Rocco Delveras endeavors? In just
those 61 years, he rose to be an influential voice in so many fields. And one can see this career
as a crazy quote, but I see it as a complex tapestry unified by a simple and powerful set of
principles focused on helping others. First, he believed in communication as a path to understanding
and personal growth. Second, he believed in helping others find their authentic voice in every way.
Third, he believed in facilitating the success of others. In all of Rocco's multifaceted work,
these principles run through electric current. And when new opportunities came to him as they do
to successful people, he selected and developed those that could further that mission. And he
did all of that while following a simple final principle, which was the job of the coach is to
be invisible. And that's the way he lived with all of us. So I'll give you an example. Here's
a typical phone call with me and Rocco. All right. So I call him up, usually in my car.
Hey, Rocco, how's it going? Rocco, Joe. I'm fine. How are you? Me, I'm good. I'm good. So tell me,
how's that, how's that thing you're dealing with going? Oh, it's all fine. Now, let's talk about
your life. And now if we would go, he deflected any attention from himself over to me. And we
would spend the next 15 or 30 or 60 minutes with Rocco, helping me untangle and plot and plan
and us coming up with new schemes of things to do together. Denise, I'm sorry. I could practically
hear her eyes roll in the background. He goes, it's Joe, Willie later. And I know there are dozens
of people in this room who have exactly the same kind of story. He spent his life quietly
shifting the focus off of himself and onto his friends, his students, his clients. I've heard
people joke about getting bracelets made that say, you know, those rubber bracelets and they would
say, what would Rocco do? You know, Denise, we missed an opportunity. I see a fundraising opportunity.
Isn't that what we all think when we get into a bond? We wonder what would Rocco do in that
circumstance? And I can tell you I've wanted to call Rocco a lot lately.
But I think the question goes deeper than that. And to the most useful place I can find in all of this.
Recently, Rocco's colleague Darcy Smith asked how he could repay Rocco for everything that Rocco
had done for him to help him. And Rocco just said, pay it forward. So if we're going to really honor
Rocco and do what Rocco would do, that's what we have to do. Pay it forward.
As much as Rocco's professional accomplishments were impressive,
I am the most grateful that I was able to call him my friend.
I call Rocco my best friend. And he was the best friend in the way that we usually think of that.
But he was also best at being a friend. I'm not the only one in this room who thought of him as
their best friend. And we are a lucky club. A lucky club that we call him. And that to us.
In the 20 years I knew him, we enjoyed so many laughs, vacations where we carried our children on
our shoulders, broke bread on holidays, played games together, sometimes deep into the night,
played ridiculous games. And we were fortunate to share a passion for theater and education
to find a friend. A true brother of choice as an adult is rare, I think, in my experience.
And Rocco was that for me. Also my mentor, my colleague, my partner in educational crime.
None of our students are here, but they would vouch for that.
We were both late-to-the-gate fathers of only children, husbands of joyful, actress wives,
ambitious teachers, and finally collaborators on some of the work I am most proud of
on stage and in print. He was a great partner and a fantastic audience.
On some level, I always knew that time with Rocco was precious and scarce, and so I cherished it
when I could get it. Our work together took us across the United States and to Europe,
where the adventure of travel was matched by that of the classroom. It was a thrill to teach with him.
We toiled happily at our books, workshops, articles together, and collaborated on productions that
he elevated with his humor and skill and thrived in what I called our anti-profit industry.
I always knew that Rocco could make more money doing other things, but he chose to work with me,
and I was honored by that. The greatest reward of it all was the fellowship of one of the kindest
men I have ever known, and that's what sticks with me most. Rocco was usually the smartest guy
in the room, you know that. But far more importantly, he was also the kindest.
In the last months of his life, Rocco was robbed of some of his mental acuity,
and that was hard to watch. But what never changed was his worth and his gratitude
and his innate kindness. To be there when he passed was a gift that I can hardly express.
He left us gracefully, held by his loving wife Denise and daughter Kendall,
and surrounded by those few fortunate people who were lucky to be present, and this is true.
After he was gone, his face bore a smile, and that says it all.
So as sad as I am at his passing, I am filled with far more gratitude than grief for the years
I shared with our friend. Rocco's generosity in helping anyone to help solve their problem,
fulfill their potential is probably the thing that unites all of us.
And so as the song says, he was to win the new power of wings. Thank you.
Oh, there is my shadow
To never have sunlight on your face
You are content to let me shine
That's your way
You always walk to step behind
So why was the one with all the glory
Oh, you were the one with all the strength
A beautiful smile without a face
For so long
A beautiful smile without the pain
Did I ever tell you you're my hero
And everything I wish I could be
I can fly higher than an eagle
Because you are the wind beneath my wings
It might have appeared to go unnoticed
But I've got it all here in my heart
I want you to know I know the truth
Of course I know it
I would be nothing without you
Did you ever know that you're my hero
You're everything I would like to be
I can fly higher than an eagle
Because you are the wind beneath my wings
Did I ever tell you you're my hero
You're everything I wish I could be
I can fly higher than an eagle
Because you are the wind beneath my wings
Because you are the wind beneath my wings
