Headshots

Today I had the pleasure of going down to Toulon, Illinois to get some headshots done by my good friend, Chad Stembridge. If you haven't seen his websites, I highly recommend checking them out. Anyway, I spent 4 hours at his house shooting photos and visiting. Chad does a very good job taking headshots and is a filmmaker as well. Here are some of the headshots he did.

Successful Performances

Hi Everyone!

I apologize for not keeping you up-to-date as I had intended. Things got extremely busy within the past month. Besides preparing for this play, I have been umpiring a lot of baseball, so my time has been limited. So, anyway, the production was a little less than two weeks ago and went very well. There weren't any major lines messed up and I thought I really became the character that I was portraying. I felt that the audience really captured the heart of my character and were rooting for him all the way.

It was, sad to say, my last performances with the Classic Players and it was a bittersweet time for me. I have been with them as an actor for almost five years, playing a wide variety of characters including Jaques from Shakespeare's As You Like It, Peter Whist in The Lions of Trondheim, the title role in The Pied Piper of Hamlin, and many others. It was sad to leave, but it's just one of those things, and now it's time to move on. I hope to pursue acting in Christian film. I have a few friends who are Christian filmmakers and I hope to be able to work with them in the near future, but for now, I am currently out of work as an actor. Acting is one of my great joys and I have a strong passion for film acting, and I can't wait for the opportunity to work in film.

I may not be on here for a while, because I am not involved with any more theatre as an actor, but when I have a production coming up I will let you know. I would also love to hear from you so please feel free to comment. I will have photos up from the last performance soon. Take care and God bless!!

Production Update

Hi everyone! It's been a while since I've posted on here, so I thought I would let you know what's been happening.

Rehearsals have been continuing as usual every Wednesday morning, so there really isn't anything new with that aspect. The production date is coming close, being less than a month away, so now I am working extra hard to be sure my lines are memorized and my character is developing into the person he needs to be.

I've been working with a dialect coach out of Los Angeles so I can use a British dialect for the performance. First of all, I must say that he is absolutely great! He's worked with award winning actors, members of foreign consulates, and businessmen. He really knows his stuff, and it has been a real pleasure to work with him over the past two months.

Other than that, there isn't much else to say. The posts will come more often as we get closer to the week of production, so keep checking back, and I hope to see you at the performances!

Open House

Last night I took part in the Midwest Homeschool Fine Arts open house (run by my parents). I was involved in quite a bit. Playing the cello, singing, improvisation, and opening the night with an impromptu speech. It was a great evening and it was a lot of fun to do all of that in one night! It gave me the rare opportunity to perform in front of a crowd informally. What I really liked most was my opening speech. It was called the Art Critic speech where we take a drawing at random and make up a speech about it as though we were and art critic. I put on a French accent and it turned into a stand-up comedy type monologue. The whole night was fun and gave me a chance to brush up on my improvising.

Art Critic Speech

The "Director" in Scripted Scenes

Hitch Hiker

Hitting the Accelerator with my Hands
Drinking CoffeeBefore we started

Update

Hey! It's been a while since I posted, so here we go again. Last Friday we had rehearsal for key scenes in the play which went very well. I think the relationships between the characters are beginning to come together and come to life. The relationships between certain characters in this story are critical, so getting them right is crucial! I haven't had much to do lately because we are working on the 2nd act and I am not in that act at all. That is good, however, because I am able to prepare myself for the last act by memorizing the lines and study the character changes that have taken place. There aren't too many, but enough that the audience should be able to see. I hope to make this character come to life in me for the audience, because that is my purpose as an actor: To take a character on a sheet of paper and bring him to life and be someone the audience can believe, relate to, and maybe even fall in love with.

Production Dates Set

The dates for the production of The Woman in White have been set. The two performances will take place on Thursday June 4th, and Friday June 5th. Both performances will take place at 7:00 p.m. at Family of Faith Church in Monee, Illinois. We normally have our spring performances in May, but they have been pushed back this year, giving us time to better prepare. We are going to need the extra time too, because it is going to involve several special effects that will require careful planning. I think it will be a very good performance.

We also went through scenes 5 and 6 in the first Act yesterday, which went very well. You know you are becoming your character when the way you say your dialogue, the actions you do, etc., come naturally and the director doesn't have much to say, so I believe my character is really advancing.