About Me, Part 2

After that first show, I was hooked.  I loved the process of rehearsals and the performances.  Loved being around the people, old(er) and young.  After that show ended, another company was doing A Few Good Men.  A friend from the first cast and I decided to audition again since we had no experience and we knew A Few Good Men quite well at that point.  We ended up doing the show for another 3 months, in different roles.  After that, I worked with my first director in a production of To Kill A Mockingbird.

One year after getting started, The Studio Theatre in Washington, DC was having open auditions for A Clockwork Orange.  A Clockwork Orange is my all time favorite book and I love the movie.  I decided that I would go audition even though I had never been to a professional audition.  I figured it would be a good experience to audition just to see what a professional audition would be like.  I was not at all expecting anything other than that.  After auditioning and 3 or 4 callbacks I was cast in a few small roles in the show.  Doing that show changed my life.  Literally.

Clockwork Orange was an amazing experience.  Working with experiences, talented actors made me so much better.  It made me focused and really lit a fire inside me.  There was so much creativity there.  Lots of people coming up with ideas and things on their own.  I wanted to be like those actors.  I wanted to know what I was doing.  They were amazing in including me, a relative beginner, in their group.  Showing me the ropes.  Treating me as an equal.  There was no conceit or rank there.  Just a group of people working hard and enjoying each other's company.  We all went through about a 9 months of withdrawal from each other afterwards and still keep in touch to this day.  Without that experience, I may not have stuck with acting.

After the Clockwork Orange experience I wanted to be the best actor I could be.  I continued to do shows for practical experience, but I wanted to learn the craft.  I enrolled in a Meisner Technique course for about a year.  Afterwards I enrolled in Studio Theatre's Acting Conservatory.  Studio has to be one of DC's most polorizing theaters.  While it is known for sharp, edgy productions, the Acting Conservatory has a distinct Love-it-or-Hate-it vibe.  It's not for everybody.  There is a definite survival of the fittest, weed out the weak approach to the teaching philosophy there.  They won't pass an actor to the next level unless they feel you are ready.  Classes end with a Final Scene night where your 15 weeks of study come down to how you perform in front of an audience.  It is stressful.  Very stressful.  More stressful than any production I've ever been a part of.  I've seen people excel during classes only to falter on FS night and not pass the class and seen people do "okay" in classes and be amazing in FS and move to the next level.  You constantly have to perform.  It's a shame to see people spend $500-600 on a class and get torn to shreds on the last night (after FSs, the faculty retire to another room and talk about each person, then the instructor comes back and the class discusses each person's performance that night.  Then the instructor tells everyone what the faculty thinks of their performance and if you can move on or fail the class.  It's a night of stress, happiness, and tears that ends around 2am.

But you know what?  I loved it all.  My 2 years at Studio were amazing.  The pressure was great.  There was an underlying anxiety every day of the next coming class.  But I met great people, learned from great instructors, and grew as an actor.  I learned a lot about myself especially that I thrive under pressure.  I wouldn't trade my time there for anything.  Being a member of the Studio community opened so many doors for me and really gave me a deeper appreciation for the theater.  I highly recommend it for anyone who has a strong desire to learn and can handle the pressure.

After my time at Studio, I have been doing theater in and around the DC area, as well as appearing in films all over the East Coast.  I feel very lucky in the opportunities I've had.  As the years have gone on, I have wanted to reconnect with learning acting again.  I want to be a complete actor.  I thought about the Theatre Lab again.  The opportunity to work closely with a tight knit group of actors, learning from seasoned instructors, and spend a year concentration on the craft of acting was just something I didn't want to pass up.  So I auditioned for one of the 10 slots in the Theatre Lab Honors Conservatory and was lucky to be accepted in to the program.

About Me, Part 1

I never would have thought that acting was something that I would want to do.  Ever!  I've been in love with movies and television all my life.  Not just as a casual observer, but as someone who was always interested in how movies/shows were made and who made them.  I was always "that guy" who knew an actor and everything else he or she has done, who is connected to who, and who produced what.  I could see a movie once and remember just about every line from it.  My close friends who spend time with me know that when I spout off with some random comment...it's usually an obscure line from a movie or a reference to a film, show, or book.  I spent much of my time working for 9 years at Pricewaterhouse Coopers settling disputes between my co-workers who argued about what movie a line came from or "what movie was it that...?".

In college I decided that I wanted to work in television news.  I interned at NBC in school working as a writer, reporter, and later as a videographer and sports reporter.  After that I was accepted in to the prestigious Syracuse University,Newhouse School of Communications,Broadcast Journalism Program.  After getting my Masters I returned to DC and worked for various television stations:  PBS, Washington Video Productions, Newschannel 8.  All during these years my friends would always tell me that I should go make movies as a producer since I love movies so much.  But I also heard people telling me that I should be an actor since I remembered lines so well and was always doing imitations of the people around me and doing characters to make people laugh.  Because of my shy personality, I was never interested in doing that.  One of the TV stations I worked for wanted me to do some on-camera work.  I was reluctant, but tried it and was very uncomfortable. Not something I wanted to pursue.

Someone suggested taking an acting class to get comfortable speaking in front of people.  I was hesitant, but eventually decided to try a beginning acting class.  That changed everything for me...kind of.

I enrolled in an acting class, not because I wanted to act but to become comfortable in front of a group of people.  I enrolled in the Washington Actors Training Program, probably in '99.  It was a beginning scene study class taught by an experience stage and film actor named Scott Morgan (remember that name, it's important later).  I took the class and then enrolled in the follow up class.  The classes were amazing.  I learned so much about acting and learned that it is harder than it looks.  Scott was a great teacher:  inspiring, creative, fun, but also challenged us.  When the classes ended, I was ready to go back to my normal life having given them a shot. I still didn't feel that acting was for me but the classes were a great experience.  But I do remember Scott saying to me that I should at least watch the Weekend Section of the Washington Post for the open auditions and just give it a shot.  He said he thought I had enough of "whatever" to get some work if I wanted to.  He also said it was the best way to learn.

A year went by.  I still was not interested in acting.  But I got the Weekend Section every Friday to read during downtime at the TV station.  One day I brought it home with me from work.  That Saturday, I was lying in bed thumbing through the Weekend Section.  I had recently gone through a rough breakup with a girl and was down in the dumps, not knowing what to do with myself.  While I read the paper, she called out of the blue.  She wanted to talk about this and that.  I was feeling bad and wanted to get off the phone.  I looked down at the paper and saw an ad for an open audition for A Few Good Men at a local theater.  I told her I was getting off the phone because I was going to audition.

When I got off the phone I thought, "what if she calls back?  Now I have to go!"  I went to the audition, filled out the paper work and waited with about 60 other people.  Then I thought, "I don't want to do this.  This isn't for me.  I'm leaving."  I started walking out the door until I realized I left my jacket inside.  I went back to get it, heard my name called, and said, "Screw it.  I don't know these people.  I'll read, leave, and never think about it again."  I went in a read and then...I wanted to get the part more than anything.  All I wanted was to be called back for another shot.  I got called back for a small role and by default (the other guy called back for the part took another part the next day) got the part.  I did A Few Good Men and by then I was hooked. I had the acting bug.

Starting Off

The idea for this blog came from my friend, Casey Jones, an actor I worked with years ago in DC.  Casey moved to NYC to pursue his dreams as an actor and playwrite.  I told Casey about the Theatre Lab's Honors Program and he said that I should write about it.  Doing this would serve 3 purposes:  To keep fresh what I have learned, to produce a "journal" of the journey over the year in the program, and to provide a day to day "in the life of" for others who are interested in acting programs and what goes on in them.  I thought it was a great idea.

The Theatre Lab is an actor's training school in Washington, DC.
          "The Theatre Lab School of the Dramatic Arts is the Washington area's most comprehensive theatre training center, providing theatre education to more than 1,000 adults, teens and children in the DC area each year. Courses and programs, all taught by professional theatre artists, include year-round classes for adults in acting, playwriting, directing, musical theatre, and drama criticism, as well as summer acting and musical theatre camps for youth. We also offer the Honors Conservatory—an intensive year-long training program for those preparing for a career in the theatre."


Acting programs are all unique in their own way.  As opposed to some programs that break you down and build you back up, weed out those who can't handle the buisness and employ a survival of the fittest mentality, the Theatre Lab has a reputation for excellent, challenging actor's training in a supportive, creative environment.  One where an actor feels free to try different things and take risks without being broken down and humiliated.  


Five years ago I heard about the Honors Conservatory.  A one year intensive study program where  10 actors are chosen to work together and learn the craft of acting from scene study, to voice and movement, Shakespeare, dialects, and other aspects of the business all while having professional performance opportunities during the year.  Working with DC directors and casting directors, professional actors, and other creative types in a collaborative environment.  I knew this was something I wanted to do.