Sometime in the 70s....

NAVAL RESEARCH HOSPITAL, BETHESDA, MD: 

I am born where my father works for the Navy on some medical research.  Still unclear whether I’m the product of some kind of DOD mad-scientist experimentation. Apparently that remains confidential…. 

 

Shortly thereafter....

SIMONSON BROS. CHRISTMAS TREE FARM, CRANBURY, NJ: 

My parents relocate to the family farm in central, NJ.  If this was part of the Mad Scientist Protection Program, perhaps not the best hiding place, but a great place to grow up nonetheless, in pastoral country located equidistant from NYC and Philadelphia…. making me something of a walking oxymoron: a New Jersey farmboy.

 

Sometime in the 80s....

A GYMNASIUM STAGE IN FARMVILLE: 

Under duress, I am drafted to play Tom Sawyer in the school musical.  Conveniently, no one tells me that being shy is a liability for being on stage…. singing loud was apparently all they were looking for.  Nailed it!

 

The school years....

GEEK CENTRAL:

At the statewide MathCounts competition, I qualify for the presentation award finals.  In presenting my solutions, I conveniently forget that, genetically, it’s impossible to calculate probabilities as though all the genes could come from the same parent.  Our team qualifies for nationals.  I’m asked not to speak any more.  My math and science teachers think maybe there’s something to this acting thing.

 

Graduation week....

WASHINGTON, DC: 

I spend a week in the nation’s capitol as a US Presidential Scholar, with 120 of the nation’s brightest high school graduates.  I think maybe there’s something to this acting thing.

 

The college years (sometime in the 90s)....

CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA, NY: 

I bury my head in books, mostly to try to stay warm.  I say prayers of thanks that my parents are willing to pay Ivy League tuition for a theatre degree, even if it is paired with a government degree.  I earn nearly half my EMC candidate weeks on a single production of West Side Story and wonder why any production could possibly need nine weeks of rehearsal.  I get my professional debut at the Hangar Theatre and wonder how any musical can be ready with only 2-3 weeks of rehearsal.

 

The aftermath....

A BUS SOMEWHERE IN THE US: 

I cut my post-college professional teeth with several years on a tour of West Side Story.  At any given performance I play Diesel, Tony, Krupke, Schrank, Glad Hand and even Doc(!).  I survive stretches as long as 30 performing days in a row, many with hundreds of miles of bus travel straight to the theatre.  I get back to NYC and put those EMC weeks to use, joining Actors Equity as quickly as I can.  I make my Equity debut as the Creature in The Rocky Horror Show at the Meadow Brook Theatre.  After being stripped to a gold Speedo in front of thousands of people, I think maybe there was something to that science and math thing.

 

Interlude: The farm years (in the 2000s)....

THAT SAME CHRISTMAS TREE FARM: 

In the decades-long aftermath of my grandfather’s and great uncle’s passing, I take a turn managing the family Christmas tree farm, while staying closer to NYC and developing more of the on-camera and commercial side of my career.  On the farm, I come to learn over those years that for me, there was never really something to the farming thing.  I develop a new appreciation for the family members for whom it is, and an overwhelming gratitude when the voiceover and on-camera side of things takes off enough to have to step back away from the farm.

 

The Great Recession & the Island Era....

THE ABYSS, THE ROAD, & THE ATLANTIC: 

I am reminded of the challenges of this career path, as the global economic near-collapse, combined with an unexpected agent reshuffling, drops the bottom out of work opportunities for an extended period.  I develop some more databases (See?  There was something to the math and science!!!)  I then run away to Greece, in the form of a touring opportunity with Mamma Mia!  After a couple of years around the US and Canada, I decide terra firma is far too firma and join the ‘takeout’ cast as Bill Austin, when Mamma Mia! launched on  the high seas on Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas.  I marvel that standing frozen on a ship stage can be harder even than dancing on the waves, and then duck as those who actually have to dance on that stage throw their shoes at me upon reading that.

 

The Great Awakening (present day)....

BACK HOME: 

After multiple years spent largely away from NYC, I return to a new landscape: more television series shooting here than ever before;  some truly outstanding original shows running, opening, coming to, and winning Tonys on Broadway; a growing, if still fragile economy building the advertising market.  I rebuild a decrepit online presence, remind the world I exist, and look forward to whatever is next….