I am born on August 21st 1978 in Amstelveen, the
Netherlands (just outside of Amsterdam).
When I was in high school we started the theater group
Magos (Maimonides Goes On Stage). I played 3 years in their
productions.
After my highschool I joined Up with People (UWP) in 1998 (for more
information see the Up with People section). This year of
travelling, doing a big show, community service and
staying with 67 host families was a life changing
experience for me. It also changed my interest in
theater from on stage to off stage (the technical side).
When I came back from UWP I moved to Spain. I lived and worked in Mallorca,
Fuerteventura and Lanzarote as an entertainer. During
the day our team entertained the guest by doing
different sport activities. At night we did an one hour
musical show. My job was to set up and prepare
everything technically for the show during the day. At
night I was in the show and also did most of the sound
and lights.
In 2002 I started to study technical theater in Amsterdam.
Immediately after I finished my studies in 2005 I got a job
at Up with People and went back on the road. The first
semester is really well documented under the menu in Up
with People - Fall 2005
Where does the name MacGaby come from?
I am very handy and I can always fix anything. When I
worked in Lanzarote, my collegues started to call be
MacGaby. That name came from the TV serie MacGyver.
The main character MacGyver was a former Special Forces
agent now working for the Phoenix Foundation, a "think
tank" dedicated to righting wrongs and defeating bad guys
around the world. A clever fellow, he often slipped past
the enemy's defenses and undermined their foul plans with
ingenuity rather than brute force, using tidbits of
scientific knowledge and ordinary items that happened to be
laying around; for example, the paper clip might be used to
short-circuit a nuclear missile, the candy bar to stop an
acid leak, or a cold capsule to ignite a makeshift bomb,
all just in the nick of time. MacGyver could work wonders
with the contents of a lady's handbag!