I began my career in the theater at the age of 12 in the local High School musical. I was hooked by the inclusive environment, the public accolades, and the exhilaration of performance. I chose to pursue Drama and received my BFA in Drama from Carnegie Mellon University.
I recieved my Actor’s Equity Association membership through the Pittsburgh CLO. Through the connections I made there, I was hired for a six month European tour of Die Schone und Das Biest (Beauty and the Beast), in German. I also toured through Europe with the English language 40th Anniversary Tour of West Side Story.
I got a big break when I was cast in the First National Tour of the Broadway musical, Footloose, for nearly a year. A second National Tour, The Full Monty, had me on the road for nearly three years. During that tour I teamed up with a couple of the teen-age boys to write some silly music in the form of the band Pedestrian Crossing, or, Ped-X, that you can hear at the “Music” link.
Following that long stint on the road, I joined the Screen Actors Guild and branched out into the film and television industry with several lead roles in student films and lots of background work in major motion pictures.
I was forced to vastly improve my guitar playing while performing the role of “Jackson” in the musical Pump Boys and Dinettes at the Pennsylvania Center Stage. With those skills, I wrote a rock-musical called Printed Name that you can hear on the “Music” page.
My last year in NYC was 2007-2008. I was in the Off-Broadway musical Sessions as “Dylan” at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater on W. 42nd St. That fall, I did two shows at the Metropolitan Playhouse: The Pioneer (Five short Eugene O’Neill plays) and the historical drama, Year One of the Empire.
I moved to Gainesville, Florida in July of 2008 and started the early-childhood music education company, Tonewood Family Music, Inc. Also in 2008, I began performing on bouzouki/guitar/bass (depending on the song) and vocals with The Embros Orchestra – a local Greek band. We released the album, Greek Glendi, in the fall of 2014. The band dissolved after the death of our founder in 2018.
In the summer of 2012, I returned to NYC to play the title role in Macbeth at the Gallery Players in Brooklyn, NY. I followed up there the next two summers with “Iago” in Othello, and “Antonio” in The Merchant of Venice.
I was given the opportunity to perform at Gainesville’s Hippodrome State Theater in a new play, The Two Musketeers, playing “D’Artagnan.” That was followed with the role of “Blackstache” in Peter and the Starcatcher, and then I was made a member of the acting company. Since then I have been involved with many other productions both comedic and dramatic, musicals and straight plays (see the “Resume” page for more details).
The University of Florida’s Digital Worlds hired me to voice the character of CAaLVIN in their TreeTender animated short film. Find a link to that project on the “Voiceovers” page.
Most recently: I played in three of the Mainstage shows at the Hippodrome during their 50th Anniversary season: “Beatty” in Fahrenheit 451, “EKO” in The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, and “The D’Ysquith Family” in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. I’m still teaching with Tonewood and now working on a new album of music, too.
To be continued…