So what can I tell you about me?

Well, the first thing you should know is my commitment to acting as a craft as well as an art. Talent cannot be taught. Craft, however, can.

Surprisingly, I've discovered working with actors in California a lack of exactly that craft. I'm not at all sure why. Perhaps I've simply been lucky beyond words in having the training I do. Or maybe it has to do with the cities on this side of the continent being a hundred years or so younger than those in the east. Maybe.

For example, few if any know what primary and secondary activities are, or how to use them. Most use a narrow range of their voice. Only a minority show any skill with their bodies (in terms of characterisation). And I'm most puzzled by a general lack of scene study. Every actor should know exactly what Subtext is...and how it relates to the text. My own workshops (click on news for more info) focus on scene study... (Without craft, all the talent on earth is little help...like having a car but no key, and not knowing how to read traffic signs).

Born in San Francisco, I was raised in Pensacola, Florida. Eventually I won a scholarship based on my ACT scores, and attended the University of West Florida. That's where I got my Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre.

But Pensacola was also the home of a very fun dinner theatre called Theatre-On-The-Square (it was originally located on Seville Square next to the water...when it moved the name seemed odd). With them I got a truckload of experience in shows that played for a month or more each. I got to play Pilate in Jesus Christ, Superstar!, Lawyer Cribbs in the 19th century melodrama The Drunkard (top hat, black cape, foreclosing the mortgage...fun, fun, fun!), Henry Albertson in The Fantastiks!, Max in The Sound of Music and Harry Hennessey in Dames at Sea!

UWF was a young university still finding itself. But I got an extraordinary amount of lore and detailed experience. For example, at different times I had to design the lights, the sound, the sets and costumes for various shows--my teacher in such, Dr. Peter Young, focusing on how to make the design serve the play. His own work in such shows as Waiting for Godot(for which I ran lights) and The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter (I played Goldberg) were superb.

My advisor, Dr. Yolanda Reed, taught an exhaustive series of "Theatre History" classes which required the reading of over twenty-five plays every semester. Her lectures placed these works in context, pulling in subjects from politics to religion to music and even hygeine... Another worthwhile class was "Theatre Management," based on specific case studies. Her emphasis was on practical decisions that allow a company to survive and flourish, including artistic decisions (like deciding precisely what kind of works you're going to do and sticking to it...otherwise people won't know what they're getting).

UWF had just started its summer theatre, the Playwright's Repertory Festival--a rotating production of three works by the same author.

My own roles in the PRF grew each year. First was Lawyer in Edward Albee's Tiny Alice. Next I was in all three Shakespeare plays...Measure for Measure, The Taming of the Shrew and As You Like It (in which I got to play Jacques...my first big Shakespeare part!). Next was Stephen Undershaft in Major Barbara, Mazzini Dunn in Heartbreak House and William the Shakespeare-lookalike waiter in You Never Can Tell. For two of these I worked with one of the two finest directors I've ever known--Dr. Jean Sharpenberg. She never let me get away with anything! And that taught lessons where they need to be learned, in the blood!

My last season with the PRF was for three plays by Arthur Miller...All My Sons, Judgement and The American Clock.

That summer I appeared in the Ohio Outdoor Drama Trumpet in the Land. Afterwards I headed for New York to attend the National Shakespeare Conservatory.

For two years I spent four to six hours a day, five days a week, honing my craft. With such superb teachers as Mario Siletti, Joannie Evans, Robert Pirelli and others I learned twice as much about acting as I'd ever known before. Every time I've directed or taught since then, I've had more and more reason for gratitude towards the NSC.

During my second year there, I got several Off Off Broadway credits, including two one-man-shows (Song/Poem/Song and Riding the Night Mare). This was when I worked with the best director I've ever had...Jimmy Tripp, who directed me in a marvelously creepy production of Macbeth. This was also when I portrayed Malvolio in Twelfth Night and Oscar in The Royal Family.

Since leaving the NSC, I've gotten to do lots of interesting roles, including the Fool in King Lear and several Kings in Pericles (that one has a huge character list). I appeared in Q2Q, Blithe Spirit, The Three Muskateers, the musicals Oklahoma! and Of Thee I Sing, The Chess Game and several pieces of children's theatre. Once I was even on Saturday Night Live!

I've also directed numerous plays like The Public Eye by Peter Shaffer, Heartbreak House by George Bernard Shaw, Dirty Linen by Tom Stoppard, as well as three stage plays of my own. Although I took nearly nine years "off" to take care of family matters (don't ask, the details are messy and dull if you're not involved), I never truly stopped working. For example, I taught classes in acting and wrote two screenplays. A friend (Tom Marcoux) made an independent film in which I played a major supporting role. Now I've moved to Los Angeles and am building a new life here...