Hometown: LaFayette, GA (30 miles south of Chattanooga, TN)
Education: UC Berkeley, Brown/Trinity MFA
Select Credits: A lot of Shakespeare. I play Romeo on the iPad educational version of R&J used in high schools.
Why theater?: It's immediate.
Who do you play in A Persistent Memory?: David Huntington.
Tell us about A Persistent Memory: How do we construct our personal histories? What stories do we tell ourselves about our own pasts, and how does time effect our perspective? Do we remember things the way we want- or the way they are? After enduring traumatic experiences, is it necessary to reconstruct our own narratives in order to survive?
What is it like being a part of A Persistent Memory?: Memorable. Memorable. Memorable. Memorable. Memorable. Memorable. Memorable.
What kind of theater speaks to you? What or who inspires you as an artist?: The kind that refuses definition. Irreverence. Marcel DuChamp. Annie Baker. Lesser America. Joe Orton. Nick Jones. Oscar Eustis. Charles Ludlam. Everett Quinton. Olympia Dukakis. Brian Mertes. Michael Stuhlbarg. Fiasco. Faultline. Bedlam. Mark Jackson from the Bay Area. Pop artist Ray Johnson. Cory Michael Smith. Adam Driver. Nick Westrate. Craig Baldwin. Miriam Silverman. Sean Graney. Anne Washburn. Paul Thomas Anderson. Radiohead. Elizabeth Warren. Vivienne Benesch. Stanley Kubrick. Michael Shannon. Martha Lavey. The Arcade Fire. Jeff Buckley. Kareem Fahmy. Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad. Harold Pinter. Martin Mcdonagh. Sam Rockwell. James Baldwin. Dan Rogers. Abraham Lincoln. Ken Burns. Barack Obama and Daniel Day-Lewis. Ben Beckley. Eliza Bent. Phillip Seymour Hoffman. John Cassavetes. Gena Rowlands. Sarah Tolan-Mee. Brad Pitt's Plan B production company. James Palmer. Jessi Hill. The Coen Brothers. Whitney White. And my fellow Prospect Heights Eastern Athletics Gym Member, John Turturro.
Any roles you’re dying to play?: Trent Reznor. Justin Trudeau. In 20 years, Oscar Eustis.
What’s your favorite showtune?: The Talking Head's "Stop Making Sense". That's a show and a tune..
If you could work with anyone you’ve yet to work with, who would it be?: Everyone I listed three questions ago as long as they are still living.
Who would play you in a movie about yourself and what would it be called?: My mind just exploded with narcissism from the question. Charlie Kaufman wrote about it. Now I'm playing myself in “Inside Myself Inside Myself Inside Myself”.
If you could go back in time and see any play or musical you missed, what would it be?: I would pause time and see all the things that I will miss out on in the present because so much wonderful art is made, and there isn't enough time or money to consume it all.
What show have you recommended to your friends?: The Humans.
What’s your biggest guilty pleasure?: Pembroke Welsh Corgis.
What’s up next?: Creating, supporting, and fostering immersive, new theater work that encourages audience members to talk to each other and eat food together and be together. To become friends. To invite each other to dinner parties. To use their cell phones if they want to document their experiences- no sweat off my back. To connect with each other. To create conversations that endure past the night of experience. No dark lights and dark seats with strangers that you will never talk to or see again. No to disconnection. Yes to eye contact and hand shakes and breaking bread and hello I know you and hello I like you would you like a drink? Shall we try to break a tiki piñata together? How about a round of pin the tail on the donkey?
For more on Drew, visit www.drewledbetteronline.com
