• The Exoticism of Spice
    September 17, 2023
    Wunderkammers confronted visitors with objects that were not only curious, rare, and precious, but also informative about their owners: how they viewed themselves and what their aspirations were. —Virginie Spenlé, Savagery and Civilization If you’ve seen any films in the...
  • Ketchup on Tamales and Other Relics from Paradise
    August 21, 2022
    “You cook?” Lindsey asked on her way out the door. The words pierced my ego, leaving me stunned somewhere deep inside. But her reaction was justified: during the several months we had been together at that point, I had been...
  • I’m Pivoting
    June 19, 2021
    “A pivot is a change in strategy without a change in vision.” -Eric Ries I’ve spent more than a decade serving disadvantaged communities as an actor, deck manager, and stage carpenter; soon, I’ll be serving additional communities pending a trip...
  • Stop Pretending There’s a Secret to Success
    March 19, 2019
    Several years ago, a friend asked me a very simple question that sparked several years of thought. She was mentioning how she had been dehydrated lately and needed to drink more water. I shared with her my recent discovery (shared...
  • How Bowling with a Friend Saved My Acting Career
    June 17, 2018
    I was a few months away from hitting the road for an eight-month tour when my friend Ryan invited me out for some bowling. Our group varied in experience. Having only bowled a handful of times in my life, I...
  • What “Getting it Right” Should Mean for Your Acting
    March 3, 2018
    You know that nightmare in which you show up to school in your underwear? Most of us have dreamt it, but as an actor, I’ve lived it. When I started acting, I developed a belief that “right” meant something solid, the...
  • How Do You Maintain Your Drive to Create?
    February 3, 2018
    How do you keep that drive of yours alive amidst the monotony of daily life? You might enter adulthood all revved-up with the energy and determination of an olympic athlete, dead-set on changing the world for the better, but what keeps you from giving up...
  • 1 Question That Will Make or Break Your Acting Career
    January 2, 2018
    Want to have a long, satisfying and life-changing career in theatre? It’s only going to happen if you ask yourself this one question: why theatre? Before you can figure out what’s leading your character’s actions, you have to figure out what’s...
  • It’s Not the Art, It’s How You Use It.
    February 19, 2016
    A painting may be art, but art is not a painting. Clear as mud? Let’s look closer. Art is made up of two parts: the tool and the purpose. If you have just one or the other, it’s not art. Use...
  • Theatre of Cards
    February 7, 2016
    Does our work live on after the final curtain? What remains when the show closes? I used to think working in theatre was like building the card towers I spent hours on as a kid. We devote tremendous amounts of time...
  • Our First Review for Little Women
    March 14, 2013
    The Barter Theatre’s Mainstage production of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is a wonderfully well done and family-friendly stage version of the much-beloved novel first published in 1868. Al-though primarily written for young girls, it pushed many boundaries of the time by...
  • Human Potential and Story
    March 6, 2013
    Sometimes when I explain my theories about story and how its telling sustains and nurtures society, people retort that stories don’t reflect real life–that they’re usually romanticized versions of life in which the good guys always win and the bad...
  • The “Why” of Art
    February 26, 2013
    There are two categories of artists in every field of the arts. The first—well… Imagine this: At a new job, you’re handed a device that prints buttons (the pin-on kind with graphics and such) and the other workers show you how to...
  • A Resolution
    February 19, 2013
    I am, without hesitation, resolved to spend my life exploring story as an active element in societies and individuals and to chart its threads as they weave their way out of and back into the fabric of human existence—that of...
  • Uncertainty
    January 31, 2013
    When you haven’t ridden a bike for a while, you begin questioning just how well you’ll remember. There’s no demo version to ease your mind. Standing there, holding the frame upright in front of you, there’s only one thing you...
  • My New Year’s Resolution
    January 1, 2013
    This past Thanksgiving, my sister and I took a drive into town while visiting my parents in Virginia. We started plotting the Mom and Dad gifts somewhere in the discounted-fancy-things section at the back of the TJ Maxx, and I...
  • Arms Full of Odds and Ends, 2012
    December 9, 2012
    My first thought is that there’s no way we’re at the end of the year already. I know it’s coming because Thanksgiving is mostly digested, the real winter weather is finally settling in, weekends are spent splitting firewood with my...
  • Relaxation: My ‘Present’ Frontier
    May 23, 2012
    Relaxation has become my new favorite challenge. A little over a week ago, I went on as the understudy to Charles Darnay in A Tale of Two Cities at Barter. I had no rehearsal with the cast, except 30 minutes prior to...