TLDR: I am appearing in the “Twenty-Sided Tavern” show in New York City for eight shows ONLY, Sept 19-24th! This is a very cool stage experience where I’ll be playing D&D + doing improv comedy, making an adventure up on the spot with my fellow cast members and with YOUR help! On your phone during the show, you will help make key decisions in the campaign and how we roll (for better or worse, eep). It’s gonna be amazing! Please come out to see me NYC-ers! Grab tickets here.
I haven’t done live theater in forever. I’m still in an improv group that performs sporadically in LA with fellow Guild members and friends (Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em) but my ability to commit to a more substantial show has been pretty much zero for SO many years. It makes me sad, because being on stage in front of people has been in my blood since I was seven years old, when my mom and aunt lied about my age and got me the role of Scout (min age to apply, ten) in the Huntsville Little Theatre performance of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” I think I won an award. I don’t remember. I do remember getting M&Ms when I learned my lines. The same way I was potty trained. Thanks for reading Felicitations!! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Since I was homeschooled, the only informal contact I really had with people after that, from ages eight to fifteen, was through acting in local community theatre productions. Frankly, it comprised the majority of fun I had as a kid. I can definitely trace the reason I moved to Hollywood to be an actor to that feeling of joy, on stage and off, with my fellow performers. Here I am at thirteen, feeling the thrill backstage.
(I was actually angry at the time because I was playing violin in the pit instead of being on stage in the chorus of “Sweeney Todd”, but oh well. Nice belt.) Sadly, my love of theatre and performance did not translate to my understanding anything about myself or “The Entertainment Business”. Hence my official stage-acting headshot at sixteen making me look like a demented thirty-year-old trying to sell stuff on QVC.
When I moved to LA at age twenty after college to take the acting world by storm, I got a rude wakeup call. I thought it was SO weird that no one else in Hollywood saw my long resume of chorus girl parts on stages in small southern cities as “perfectly qualified to hire”. I mean, I was in “Sweet Charity” TWICE, why wouldn’t NBC snap me up for a series regular!!? I struggled with all the rejection, and almost quit acting. But then I found a home at a now-defunct theatre in LA called “Empty Stage” where I auditioned for, and got, a role in a play called “Three.”
We got good reviews. I think. I don’t remember, and I don’t really care, lol. Through that experience I started doing improv comedy at the theatre, and met so many wonderful people, including two of my “Guild” cast-mates, Zaboo (Sandeep Parikh) and Vork (Jeff Lewis). So…in short, it all comes back to theatre for me. And the PLAY of performing. I am thrilled to be back on stage this week (and also a little nervous!), to make up stuff in front of an audience once again. I truly hope y’all can attend! And who knows, maybe on the heels of THIS stage production, the long-gestating “The Guild” musical might have a staged reading in LA the spring…hint hint. ;) Interesting Links:
Personal Links (Also Interesting):
See you next month, and on my Discord channel in between for chatting and friendship! <3 oxxo
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