Jon Douglas Rake leaves lasting legacy at Tacoma Musical Playhouse
Jon Douglas Rake didn’t just build a theater company. He built a family.
After a lifetime spent both onstage and offstage, the 67-year-old co-founder of Tacoma Musical Playhouse died Dec. 30 due to complications from Lamin A/C cardiomyopathy, a congenital heart condition.
Rake’s life was filled with creativity, generosity and a deep love for theater.
Prior to his time in Washington, he met his life partner Jeffrey Stvrtecky in California in 1983. Rake was a professional dancer, having directed, performed in and choreographed hundreds of shows, Stvrtecky said.
When the pair moved to Tacoma in 1993, there was no company solely dedicated to musical theater. Rake, with a degree in theater directing and choreography, and Stvrtecky, with a degree in piano performance and conducting, knew they had to change that.
The Tacoma Musical Playhouse began in 1994 as a nomadic theater company with just $1,500 to its name, performing small plays in church basements. When the Narrows Theater in Tacoma went up for sale, the organization purchased the historic venue and the playhouse has called it home ever since.
Today, 33 years after its founding, TMP is a thriving community theater with an annual budget of $2.2 million.
As Managing Artistic Director, Rake was responsible for choosing the season’s musicals, holding auditions, and lining up directors and choreographers for the shows, as well as other logistical activities to help the theater function.
He also enjoyed performing in TMP productions, his favorite being the titular “Man In Chair” for the musical, “The Drowsy Chaperone.” The playhouse took that show to competition with the American Association of Community Theatre, and won all the way to the national championship, Stvrtecky said.
“TMP patrons were particularly fond of his energetic and entertaining preshow curtain speeches,” Stvrtecky said.
But where Rake stood out the most was in his inclusive and loving approach to mentoring anyone who walked through the theater’s doors. It earned him the affectionate nickname, “Papa Jon.”
“We kind of saw ourselves as foster parents,” Stvrtecky said. “We would get a new family for about eight or ten weeks, and we nourished them, taught them, encouraged them, and then they go away and it starts over again for the next show.”
Two people who remember Rake as family are Lexi and Steve Barnett, two performers who met at the playhouse in 2009.
When they married years later, Rake emceed their wedding. Just last year, their 8-year-old daughter Hazel played an orphan in the company’s production of “Annie.”
“It was just this full-circle experience,” Lexi said. “This kid wouldn’t even be here if Jon and Jeff hadn’t created TMP.”
Steve credits Rake for helping him recover from a tough childhood by guiding him through the theater world and showing him to appreciate the arts.
“He has given me so many chances, just in the parts that he’s given me where I didn’t think I could play a part, and he was like, ‘Tough, you’re going to do it,’” Steve said. “The way I am now is a product of Jon and the company and the family that he formed.”
A key part of Rake’s tenure at TMP was emphasizing diversity throughout the company, not just in casting but in providing accessible programs to people of all backgrounds. This ranged from their education programs for kids interested in theater as young as seven to their Young At Heart Players program, which gives seniors a chance to put on their own musical.
Deanna Martinez, the education and community programs director at Seattle Rep, previously acted in TMP productions and served as its interim education director.
“It’s been really interesting in Seattle to look at casts and say, ‘Oh, that person. I know them from TMP,’” Martinez said. “The health and well-being of TMP is an incredibly vital part of the overall health and well-being of theater in our region.”
During 2020, when theater companies across the country were forced to reckon with racist histories, Rake was always open to conversation, Martinez said.
“He wanted to move things forward and to do it right,” she said. “So he along with many of us created this DEI committee that still exists at TMP.”
Sharry O’Hare, a veteran actress whose involvement with TMP stretches 30 years, has participated in every program Rake provided at the theater. She remembers Rake ordering plays for her with challenging roles, such as the “world’s worst singer” Florence Foster Jenkins in “Glorious”.
“Jon Rake will never be forgotten,” O’Hare said. “He’s just touched too many people all the way around, and he just left such an imprint on this community. That theater will go on and he’ll always be there.”
Besides theater, Rake loved traveling, gourmet cooking, restoring his historic Victorian home and spending time with the dogs he shared with Stvrtecky, which they named after the lead characters from their musicals.
A celebration of life open to the general public will be scheduled in the future and announced on the TMP website.
This story was originally published January 3, 2026 at 6:00 AM.
