While Executive Director David Herbelin says the runway has been set for his departure now for months from Olympic Theatre Arts, he’s set this weekend as the right time to step down from the community theater nonprofit.

The 51-year-old jack-of-all-trades in the entertainment industry will stop in his role effective Sunday, Feb. 15 to spend more time with his family as he continues his fourth round of treatment for colorectal cancer that has spread throughout his body.

“(OTA’s board of trustees have) known that I’ve had cancer ever since the day I was diagnosed back in spring of ‘22, and I had just been hired in September of ‘21,” he said.

“So I was maybe six months on the job or so, and all of this went down and I thought, ‘Are you kidding me? I just moved here. I just got a new job, and just started to do the family dream.’”

Part of that dream included buying a home in Sequim and going on to start their own lavender business, Old Barn Lavender Company at 9785 Old Olympic Hwy.

Steve Rodeman, OTA’s board president, said Herbelin was a transformative leader during his time as executive director.

“His relentless dedication to making OTA a cornerstone of this community by consistently improving our experiences with the performing arts has left a strong foundation for this theater and many great memories of his time with us,” he said.

Herbelin has agreed to carry on as a part-time consultant for a few months, Rodeman said, to ensure the projects he’s involved in go to completion and to help as needed sharing his expertise. OTA’s board of trustees will make a decision later in the week about posting the executive director position, he said.

Sequim Gazette photo by Matthew Nash David and Melissa Herbelin hug outside Olympic Theatre Arts where they both work. David will step down this week as executive director to focus more on family following a cancer diagnosis. Melissa will continue to work for the theater, and the theater’s board of trustees will seek a new director.

Treatment and prognosis

Discussions about a succession plan date back to October, Herbelin said.

His oncologist made a determination in June that his third round of treatment was likely the last until they determined a pill, rather than more infusions, could serve as a fourth round of treatment starting in November to help improve his day-to-day life. He has a CT scan in a few weeks to see how it’s going.

“It’s not going to stop it. There’s nothing that’s going to stop it. It’s just about slowing it down and extending life and improving quality of life for as long as possible,” Herbelin said of the cancer.

He recalls having his first surgery two weeks before the opening of the first Lavender Melodrama, an annual summer musical each July that Herbelin writes with jokes and songs about Sequim and the Olympic Peninsula’s many quirks. He recently finished his first draft for this summer’s show.

Through the treatments and appointments, Herbelin said all of the doctors, nurses and staff at Olympic Medical Cancer Center in Sequim and at clinics in Silverdale and Tacoma have been amazing.

“I’ve got to say the nicest people in the world I’ve ever met are oncology nurses,” he said. “They just know that everybody there is going through a bad time, and they’re trying their best to just keep patients as comfortable and happy as possible.”

Herbelin said he didn’t ask for a prognosis for a long time but eventually he did and is proud to say he’s outlived it a couple of times over.

Sequim Gazette file photo by Matthew Nash/ Actors, including David Herbelin, second from left, rehearse a scene from last year’s Lavender Melodrama, a recent annual tradition started by Herbelin that lampoons elements of Sequim. He recently finished his first draft on the fourth iteration of the show.

Herbelin said his oncologist, Dr. Martin Palmer, told him he’s never met someone with such a positive attitude and so much hope after getting so many unfair deals with the disease.

Family and OTA are the two things that have helped him persevere, Herbelin said, and leaving the nonprofit is not something he wants to do as it’s helped give him purpose and a sense that his work is helping people smile and laugh.

With his resignation planned, Herbelin said he wanted to make sure big projects were done or planned out for a year to give the organization its own “runway” in cooperation with staff and volunteers. That included lining up directors for 2026’s shows, having advertisements and press releases ready for the year, and finishing the roof project as part of a half-million dollar campaign.

“Coincidentally it’s being completed at the same time I’m leaving so that worked out just perfectly,” he said.

When he started at OTA, trustees tasked him with eliminating the illusion that it was a clique, while creating more awareness for the theater’s offerings.

“We really worked on making sure the public knows this is their playground,” Herbelin said.

As for awareness, he said when staff and volunteers look at each audience, they don’t recognize most attendees, which he said is great.

Sequim Gazette file photo by Matthew Nash/ David Herbelin (as William Cartwright) introduces the audience to the play-within-a-play “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” at Olympic Theatre Arts in 2023. Herbelin has acted in, directed, and written productions for the the theater since he started in September 2021.

Building the show

OTA has continued a trend for Herbelin loving every job he’s ever had.

“I have lived one of the most fulfilling lives in that regard (and) with the exception of working for Chili’s restaurant for one day, I’ve loved every single job in my life,” Herbelin said.

Being OTA’s executive director has allowed both sides of his brain to fire simultaneously at full power fueling both his creative and logical/problem-solving sides.

“It’s been amazing,” he said.

Herbelin spent most of his life in Southern California working in some form of entertainment whether in comedy clubs, leading summer camps, acting, working with theme parks, and/or owning an escape room business.

He’s originally from the town of Solvang, which became the model for Washington’s Leavenworth. He moved during high school to Irvine, and said Sequim was the first place to feel like Solvang to him with its charm.

Through his career, he has accumulated a laundry list of accomplishments. At age 18, Herbelin said he was hired as a sound operator for improv comedy clubs and he later became a general manager working with the top comedians of the world.

He was tasked with helping bring Second City Improv from Chicago to Los Angeles, and has also taught acting to comedians.

For Disney, he contracted with Walt Disney Imagineering for 20-plus years writing and directing new pieces for theme parks and parties that highlighted their technology for various shows including “Star Wars,” Marvel, Pixar brands and more.

One show that he knows of that’s still going includes Remy the rat from “Ratatouille” appearing on a cart with a waiter controlling its movement.

His wife Melissa, also an OTA employee, worked in many roles for Disney, too, such as head of entertainment, head of parade maintenance, head of the character department, and her last position before moving to Sequim was head of the parade maintenance department.

Herbelin ran multiple businesses in Anaheim, near Knott’s Berry Farm and Disneyland, including Puzzlemazement, an escape room company, Edutainment, a summer camp company, and a magic shop that he admittedly said failed but taught him a lot.

The magic shop’s building went on to become his first escape room “The Dollhouse” where they lined walls with thousands of dolls.

Photo courtesy David Herbelin/ Pictured here in his lavender field at Old Barn Lavender Company, David Herbelin does “The Herbelin,” a pose his friends and family coined that he’s done for fun for pictures over many years.

“It blew up overnight and it was an instant success, and within a week, it was sold out three months ahead of time,” Herbelin said.

He continued to run the businesses while living in Sequim and simultaneously working for OTA until the cancer diagnosis. Herbelin offered the business to his oldest daughter but she declined, so the family closed it in 2023. They also gave the camp supplies to his business partner for free.

The Herbelins purchased their home in 2017 and he moved to Sequim in 2021 to start work at OTA. Melissa moved up the following year once they sold their home in California.

The couple considered starting their own businesses like an escape room and summer camp offerings, but found permitting and construction requirements through Clallam County to be too costly. They advocated to county officials for less stringent guidelines for farms like theirs when the county revised its agricultural access use.

Herbelin also asked Clallam County commissioners to seek a cultural access tax of one-tenth of 1 percent sales tax to support nonprofits to advance access to areas, such as the performing arts, to offer free/reduced tickets and/or increase ADA-accessibility. He said it’s his biggest regret not seeing it passed during his tenure.

He said even on his hardest days at OTA, he’s been able to help people fulfill their dreams and give them a positive experience.

“The theater is making it so that when you leave our property, you leave either happier or better off than how you first walked in, and that’s my job is to ensure that,” Herbelin said.

As for any advice to share, he said people can still make amazing changes.

“I had cancer the whole time I was there,” Herbelin said.

He lives with Melissa, daughter Sabrina, and his brother Mike. They have savings from their previous careers, and said they’re not seeking financial support, but are not opposed to the community’s support, which has been offered to them many times via theater supporters, they said.

“Bottom line is we’re figuring it out,” Herbelin said.

For more about Olympic Theatre Arts, visit OlympicTheatreArts.org or call 360-683-7326.