Headshot by Ted Ely
Private Lives - Victor – Old Creamery Theate
Private Lives - Victor – Old Creamery Theate
ASTEP And the LAst Few Years
Who Dunnit Darling? - Martin Lomax – Pioneer Playhouse
|
This powerful man who has done everything to get rich and have a beautiful wife. He's over-compensating. I put the emphasis on OVER-compensating. The audience seemed to enjoy a strong, yet internally weak character and the shape shifting into an old man.
|
Is He Dead? - Chicago – Pioneer Playhouse
This gave me the opportunity to drive lots of scenes and be really zany. And it was written by Mark Twain and David Ives.
The Wonder Team – Yokel, Footballer, Reporter, Walter Camp, Train Conductor, Board Member, Cowboy – Pioneer Playhouse
Think 39 Steps meets Football Team Biopic! Lot's of costume changes, entrances and exits.
Walking Across Egypt – Finner Swanson - Pioneer Playhouse
A touching, beautiful story, and we got to be the gun-crazy, comic-relief stopping the show every night!
A Visit from Scarface – Dutch - Pioneer Playhouse
Prohibition Gangsters!
Pioneer Playhouse Kentucky 2014
The last time I wrote , I had just arrived at the Old Creamery Theater, a 300 seat Equity Theater, set amidst the corn fields of Amana, Iowa. I spent two months filling in as Technical Director during a nation-wide search. I consulted for the update to their sound system, built the set for Private Lives in the studio theater and designed and built the set for Ring of Fire: The Johnny Cash Musical on the Mainstage. I love Johnny Cash and I loved the cast of the show even more. Half of them were from New York and the rest were from St. Louis and Iowa. I met many, many great people in Iowa and one of the biggest pay-offs was meeting talented performers, including those I took the boards with as Victor in Private Lives. The more stories I hear about travels through the American Theater, the more I think there may be a place somewhere for me to immerse myself in the work and the people I have dreamed of for so long. This summer will mark my 20th year chasing reflections and shadows.
The 2014 season at Pioneer Playhouse is open with Whodunnit Darling? running on our outdoor stage, which can accommodate up to 400 patrons. It's my 3rd consecutive summer in Danville, KY and I am more busy than ever, working on sound, lights, acting in the first, second and probably third and fifth shows of the season. I shaved my head for the first show and have aged up to a play a rich, 50-year-old businessman, Martin Lomax. Next I'll play Chicago in Is He Dead? It's a gag a minute show and I have a lot of lines. The cast this year is great! I'm joined by Erika Lee, an actress from New York and UCSB. She's sitting across from me drinking coffee and doing the same thing I am doing. Catching up with life on a rare day off at the Playhouse. It truly is theater bootcamp some days and other days sleep-away summer camp.
The Voices Inside theater in prison program has also begun. The circle at Northpoint State Prison have written some good plays. An exciting piece of news is that Rob D., who has been in the program for five years (since its inception) and imprisoned for 27 years was released from prison. He is living in Danville and enjoying his freedom. In a perfect world he'd have been released much sooner, but he made the best of his time and was a leader in the circle and in all aspects of his incarceration. It is exciting to see him free, but it is also a reminder that our work isn't done until we build a prison that rehabilitates instead of simply locking away. There are so many voices that are not heard in today's multinational corporate hierarchy. It is so refreshing for me to get to work on an outreach that finds great stories and develops and performs them.
I am looking forward to growing this summer as an actor, friend, designer, and all-around applied theatrician. It's hard to say where the wind blows, but every once in a while I swear I smell the streets of Astoria, the hot broth of Pho cooking in Chinatown, and the dirty trust fund gutter-punk children of Brooklyn riding the L train to Union Square. Back to memorizing lines!
The 2014 season at Pioneer Playhouse is open with Whodunnit Darling? running on our outdoor stage, which can accommodate up to 400 patrons. It's my 3rd consecutive summer in Danville, KY and I am more busy than ever, working on sound, lights, acting in the first, second and probably third and fifth shows of the season. I shaved my head for the first show and have aged up to a play a rich, 50-year-old businessman, Martin Lomax. Next I'll play Chicago in Is He Dead? It's a gag a minute show and I have a lot of lines. The cast this year is great! I'm joined by Erika Lee, an actress from New York and UCSB. She's sitting across from me drinking coffee and doing the same thing I am doing. Catching up with life on a rare day off at the Playhouse. It truly is theater bootcamp some days and other days sleep-away summer camp.
The Voices Inside theater in prison program has also begun. The circle at Northpoint State Prison have written some good plays. An exciting piece of news is that Rob D., who has been in the program for five years (since its inception) and imprisoned for 27 years was released from prison. He is living in Danville and enjoying his freedom. In a perfect world he'd have been released much sooner, but he made the best of his time and was a leader in the circle and in all aspects of his incarceration. It is exciting to see him free, but it is also a reminder that our work isn't done until we build a prison that rehabilitates instead of simply locking away. There are so many voices that are not heard in today's multinational corporate hierarchy. It is so refreshing for me to get to work on an outreach that finds great stories and develops and performs them.
I am looking forward to growing this summer as an actor, friend, designer, and all-around applied theatrician. It's hard to say where the wind blows, but every once in a while I swear I smell the streets of Astoria, the hot broth of Pho cooking in Chinatown, and the dirty trust fund gutter-punk children of Brooklyn riding the L train to Union Square. Back to memorizing lines!
Actor/Technician in IOwa
I've had some of the happiest days in my life in the last 6 months. From the woods of Pioneer Playhouse Kentucky, to the lush fields of the Green Fields Bison Ranch Oregon(sounds Jewish, huh?), to the city jungle of New York City and am pleased to announce the next step in my journey as I leave for the Old Creamery Theatre in Amana, IA! I took a train from Boston, Massachusetts to Chicago, Illinois Sunday, March 2nd and begin building the set of Private Lives on March 5th. I'm playing Victor Prynne in Private Lives, building two sets, and generally jumping in wherever I can at the Old Creamery as needed.
New York City has been for me a mystical experience. I spent 6 months in the city surviving primarily as a Freelance Theater and Events Carpenter and Electrician, only leaving for three days to a Berrol Family Bar Mitzvah in the Bay Area and my recent hop down to Philly and DC. I'm afraid to leave. It felt so good to get off the bus and get back in the city that has given me such great opportunities and visions. For a theater junkie like me, New York City is sort of like Jerusalem, Mecca, and Charles Dickens' London combined. It's gritty and it smells like fresh gyros, sweat, cologne, dreck, urine and gasoline. It's a city where rent is almost as expensive as a hotel and 20 dollars can fly out of a pocket as if the wind were constantly blowing. It's also a city of opportunity and chance. Circumstances change; jobs open and close with lighting speed. I have lost out on a gig only to be offered a better gig in the same time frame and better. I have been told I am unqualified for a job paying $12 an hour only to get the same job paying more than twice as much the next week. I have run out of ideas and gone to an oyster bar only to find my next gig through my waiter, only to be fired from the gig, only to make two months rent in a week. And the whole time I have fallen more and more in love with the city, with my dreams, with art, people, light, carpentry, performance, and stories. It is the perfect city for stories.
So I'll be back next August with another art hustle. I'll be back with a drill and a crescent wrench to painstakingly build and quickly break down theater and live events. I'll be back to a world that blows my mind every day I go to work and fills me with dreams every time I enter the subway to take a train to the other side of possibility.
New York City has been for me a mystical experience. I spent 6 months in the city surviving primarily as a Freelance Theater and Events Carpenter and Electrician, only leaving for three days to a Berrol Family Bar Mitzvah in the Bay Area and my recent hop down to Philly and DC. I'm afraid to leave. It felt so good to get off the bus and get back in the city that has given me such great opportunities and visions. For a theater junkie like me, New York City is sort of like Jerusalem, Mecca, and Charles Dickens' London combined. It's gritty and it smells like fresh gyros, sweat, cologne, dreck, urine and gasoline. It's a city where rent is almost as expensive as a hotel and 20 dollars can fly out of a pocket as if the wind were constantly blowing. It's also a city of opportunity and chance. Circumstances change; jobs open and close with lighting speed. I have lost out on a gig only to be offered a better gig in the same time frame and better. I have been told I am unqualified for a job paying $12 an hour only to get the same job paying more than twice as much the next week. I have run out of ideas and gone to an oyster bar only to find my next gig through my waiter, only to be fired from the gig, only to make two months rent in a week. And the whole time I have fallen more and more in love with the city, with my dreams, with art, people, light, carpentry, performance, and stories. It is the perfect city for stories.
So I'll be back next August with another art hustle. I'll be back with a drill and a crescent wrench to painstakingly build and quickly break down theater and live events. I'll be back to a world that blows my mind every day I go to work and fills me with dreams every time I enter the subway to take a train to the other side of possibility.