Hometown: Mansfield, MA
Education: BA in Political Science from Boston College
Select Credits: All’s Well that Ends Well (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company); A Christmas Carol (Kentucky Repertory Theatre); A Couple of Poor Polish-Speaking Romanians (Henry Street Settlement); Survived By (3LD)
Why theater?: It’s a celebration of being alive! 1. Can’t do it if you’re dead. 2. People are born and die on stage, they are political, they are honest, they go on journeys and take the audience with them. It is one of the most immediate forms of communication. The audience and actors dig deep and discover something that needs to be expressed. Find it! Say it aloud so you know you’re alive! And celebrate!
Tell us about Quest for the West: Adventures on the Oregon Trail: It is set in 1848, which clearly means it must be an interactive musical comedy! So the audience gets to choose their journey: they name the characters, dictate how we cross the river, yodel, create the world’s scariest buffalo stampede, go hunting, and more! Without the audience’s help we may not be able to get to Oregon…
What is it like being a part of Quest for the West: Adventures on the Oregon Trail?: All we do is laugh during rehearsals, so my abs look great.
What kind of theater speaks to you? What or who inspires you as an artist?: Ensemble-based work, where artists come together armed with commitment, energy, ideas, and a sense of humor to push each other to create something much larger than any of us thought possible.
Any roles you’re dying to play?: Hamlet, James Tyrone Jr., Lucky, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, Nick/Reader in Gatz, Kenneth Branagh in his biopic
What’s your favorite showtune?: Anything that I can hum hours later that won’t get on my nerves.
If you could work with anyone you’ve yet to work with, who would it be?: Mark Rylance. The company of Elevator Repair Service. Did I already say Mark Rylance? Mark Rylance.
Who would play you in a movie about yourself and what would it be called?: Megan Fox would play me in "Transformers 7". Need to sell tickets somehow…
What show have you recommended to your friends?: Peter and the Starcatcher- the story telling is so wonderfully creative! And Dangerous Ground’s production of …But the Next Morning. I am a big fan of Artistic Director Doris Mirescu.
What’s your biggest guilty pleasure?: Chips and hummus…I am eating them now. Why are they such a delicious combination?
What’s up next?: Coosje. It is a work that members of No. 11 Productions and I developed inspired by the artwork of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen about two artists who find their playful aesthetic together and attempt to escape death, all the while a singing Pear embarks on a heroic quest to achieve immortality. We performed in NYC this past winter, and will be doing it again this September in Delaware.
Fore more on Quest for the West: Adventures on the Oregon Trail, visit http://no11productions.weebly.com/
