Moving Forward

I just rang in the year of 2021 with some of my closest friends, men who are brothers in all but blood, men who challenge as much as they do celebrate one another. It was a sentimental end to a uniquely difficult year, and an energized beginning to my next adventure.

The Gentlemen’s Sextet

I can’t tell you what I’ll be doing or where I’ll be two weeks from now, let alone two months from now. If I learned one thing from 2020, it’s that the plan always changes. But I will continue to teach yoga (both virtually and in-person, masked, socially-distant, etc.), I will continue to write, and I will continue my thus-far haphazard career as an actor.

2020 gave me plenty of opportunities to quit my passion and go back to the comfortable desk job I know I’m capable of doing, and God knows those won’t be the last… But I now feel more driven than ever to pursue my dream of acting for a living for the rest of my life. You’ll be seeing me. Sooner than you think. To quote the talented enigma Ricardy Charles Fabre, “Watch me. Watch me close.”

The view from “Bonnie Brae”

The Great Pause

I’ll start with the understanding that countless lives have faced upheaval, disaster, and tragedy this past year. COVID-19 has ended the lives of millions across the globe, wreaked havoc upon world-wide markets (the consequences of which we will not fully realize for years to come), and has even been used as a political cudgel to further divide an already shaken public. I am — and have been — profoundly fortunate, and I recognize I am walking away from this immensely challenging year with far fewer scars than most. I have my loving and hard-working family to thank for that.

In March of 2021, I was staring down the barrel of a great many opportunities: my Brown/Trinity Rep Showcase, an ensemble role in Trinity Repertory’s Sweeney Todd, my 3rd Year Recital, performing in Theater at Monmouth’s Summer Repertory, playing the lead role in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder at TAM, and remounting a production of The Turn of the Screw with a few classmates of mine in New York come late Fall. Obviously, by the time late April came around, all of these plans were either postponed or tanked altogether. Needless to say, the launch of my illustrious acting career after three grueling years of training was not quite what I expected it to be… However, God blessed me with a sense of clarity and unbridled optimism in the face of catastrophe. And so, after a few weeks of binging unhealthy food and unhealthier media, I got my shit together and got to it.

Theater at Monmouth’s Measure for Measure, Provost. Photo by: Michelle Handley

Over the last 9 months I:

• Submitted a full-length screenplay for my grad school thesis and then graduated from said school; took up swimming

• Began learning Japanese daily

• With the help of the rest of the Board of Directors, helped guide this summer’s iteration of The Vineyard Sound through its most challenging year yet

• Drove across country with my father

• Did some serious Spring-cleaning in my family’s house in Maine

• Did some serious drinking

• Completed my CorePower Yoga 200 Hour Teacher Training training and received my certificate

• Performed the role of Angelo in William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure at Theater at Monmouth (following strict CDC/WHO guidelines — I am especially proud of this feat)

• Did some more serious drinking

• Produced, curated, and performed in a Virtual “Showcase 2.0” with members from the class of 2020 at Brown/Trinity Rep, watch it here (shoutout Adam Elder for his wonderful work)

• Shot a short horror about a young man uncovering the truth behind his sister’s disappearance and how it concerns an ancient creature that can steal and replicate a voice, coming soon

• Began teaching yoga at Way to Be Wellness yoga studio in Kennebunk, Maine

• Ran my first 5K (in full Santa garb)

• And drank spent more consecutive weeks with my family than I thought I ever would.

Production still of the “Showcase 2.0”

In short, this year, however frustrating and crushing it was at times, has been a profound gift. It took a lot of tears and my fair share of self-sabotaging behavior, but I managed to turn this Loss into a Win, and no one can take that from me.

Books I read:

• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

• Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

• CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties by Dan Piepenbring and Tom O’Neil

• The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt

• The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity by Douglass Murray

Movies I watched:

• The Lighthouse

• Parasite

• Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

• My Man Godfrey

• The Philadelphia Story

• Jojo Rabbit

• Dirty Harry

• Resident Evil 1

• Ikiru

• Rashomon

• The Social Dilemma

• Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief

• The Thin Man

• After the Thin Man

Television I watched:

• Kimetsu no Yaiba season 1

• Shingeki no Kyojin Final Season

• JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (Parts 1 through 5… feel free to judge me)

• The Mandalorian season 2

• Star Wars the Clone Wars season 7

Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Class of 2020

These were the most challenging years of my artistic life by a landslide. The standard of excellence expected across the board at Brown/Trinity Rep was—in my experience—often unattainable. 

However, I believe this was by design. As an actor, your job is to deliver the fullest, most honest expression of imaginary circumstances in each given moment. Brown/Trinity taught me that this kind of acting -- professional acting where you deliver what you need to deliver, on time, regardless of your personal situation -- requires self-awareness, focus, flexibility, and a secret ingredient—an internal switch you flip so you can just keep going.

B/T Class of 2020

I had to flip this switch in every production while earning my Master’s: Marie Antoinette, A Christmas Carol, The Turn of the Screw, She Kills Monsters, Saltfish, Commedia de las Equivocaciones, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Five Ways In, and A Seat at the Table).

I also took part in a fair amount of strange (and informative) art. Highlights include: 

1) My portrayal as the Swan in Elizabeth Egloff’s play of the same name: I entered from the B/T lunch room refrigerator (ass naked), downed a quart of milk, vomited said milk, and then honked and flapped my arms as I humped a chair for the next few minutes. 

2) Playing a Jordan-Peterson-Kermit-the-Frog Trash Monster from a garbage can, wearing a literal trash bag jumper I fashioned together 10 minutes prior to curtain. 

3) Screaming/singing Dear Evan Hansen in the studio stairwell like no one was watching.

In my time at B/T I also wrote two fun, feature-length screenplays, neither of which will see the light of day until I finish some light enormous edits. My first follows a group of misfit Bay Area high schoolers as they uncover the newly-hired school counselor’s plot to mind-control the student body in an effort to create the safest most progressive school in California. My second screenplay doesn’t even have a damn elevator pitch so come back when I’ve figured that out please and thank you!

I couldn’t have more gratitude for my teachers and mentors and friends during this challenging time. I would like particularly to thank my mentor Brian McEleney. I have never had the fortune of learning from a man so single-mindedly driven to guide me as an artist with such generosity, dedication, and love. Over the last three years, he and my teachers taught me many important lessons — all of which can be applied in life as well as art — not the least of which being: When adversity strikes onstage, be it a complete blunder, a missed line, or a particularly powerful and terrifying emotion bubbling up from my gut, stop, breathe, feel your feet on the floor, be there, and take a step forward. Everything else is just dressing.

My First Stint in LA

After being fired out of the scam rocket of Higher Education and taking a detour on an island off the coast of Massachusetts, I landed in LA in the fall of 2015. Through persistence and a stretched truth here and there, I landed an Administrative Assistant job with (then) PMK*BNC, a PR/Marketing firm for lifestyle and entertainment. 

For the first 6 months I worked in film publicity, promoting awards campaigns for A-list films. It was a  real trial by fire, but I felt like an adult. I was going to a fancy office, wearing office-y clothes, drinking office-y coffee. 

Over the next 10 months — in an effort to carve out more time for my purpose, y’know, actually acting — I worked part-time in Accounting at PMK*BNC. Shoutout to my boss Regina Taylor! She’s the real MVP. Now, I’ll be the first to tell you, this was not my calling, but it sure as hell put food on the table, and I learned a fair amount about how to be a goddamn adult.

LA was generally pretty awesome. I took some acting classes (ActNow, really solid), got scammed by some acting classes (Michelle Danner Studio, shame on you), landed a cool staged reading at the Bootleg Theater, even came dangerously close to joining a cult (I’d be lying if I said it didn’t revolve around the practice of orgasmic meditation)… but spending most of my time working in an office, I found myself frustratingly unfulfilled. 

In the midst of it all, I began practicing yoga and mindfulness (my eyes are rolling too). And aside from engaging in the most “I’m an LA transplant look at me” behavior possible, I began unraveling a great deal of who I want to be. I remembered why I came out here in the first place, to be a f#@$ing actor. 

It all came to a head when I was let go fired by PMK*BNC (Shoutout Regina Gates again — she let me down easy) only 5 days before my grad school auditions. 

Strangely enough, I took it relatively well, considering I was going to have to figure out how I was going to make ends meet for the next few months. Regina even pulled me aside in the lobby before leaving and offered me another position. She told me everyone in Accounts Payable liked me and my work ethic and didn’t want to see me go. The new position was fewer hours, less pay, but a solution. I thanked her and told her I’d consider it.

After an evening fraught with ugly-crying and anxiety -- an emotional release I’d say I was long overdue for -- what followed was a profound calm and notion that no matter what, I’d goddamn figure it out. 

You ever have to shimmy out of your sleeping bag, crack open your Ford Fiesta, and piss into the gutters on 3rd street in Santa Monica at 3:00 in the morning, darting your eyes back and forth in vain ‘cuz you aren’t wearing your contacts and you’re practically blind without them? ‘Cuz let me tell you, that taught me some shit. In all honesty though, it was that point at which things began to coalesce for me.

A few weeks after I was fired let go, I was accepted into Brown/Trinity Rep MFA for Acting. The next few months are a bit of a blur, but they ranged from wildly chaotic to bizarrely peaceful. I worked odd jobs. I slept in my car for a  while. I would shower at the LA Fitness and dry off with paper towels. I meditated with randos and car-sleepers in the Santa Monica/Venice area. Cashed in my Chipotle Chiptopia Rewards (throwback) and landed $300 of Chipotle catering which fed me when I was strapped. I even saw one (read: many) homeless man butt-ass naked showering at the Santa Monica beach public showers. Hell of a time.

One April morning in 2017, after a night of raucous partying , as I watched the sun rise on the waters of Santa Monica, I said my goodbyes to LA. I closed the chapter on: 1) Entering adulthood, 2) Leaving formalized and externally-imposed structure, and 3) Uncovering a fraction of what it would take to make it as an actor. They were a thoroughly difficult and uncomfortable few years, and I’d be lying if I said I had no idea just how much more challenging the next three would be… 

The Summers of Sound

If you spend fewer than 5 minutes with me, you’ll know I love to sing a cappella. If you spend another 2 seconds with me, you’ll know how I eat, drink, and breathe (drumroll please) The Vineyard Sound.

The Vineyard Sound — Martha’s Vineyard’s professional all-male a cappella group — was founded in 1992 and is a 501(c)(3) non-profit comprised of ~10 young men hailing from Skidmore College, Wesleyan University, Connecticut College, and the College of William & Mary. I was in The Vineyard Sound — or VS, if you’re into the whole brevity thing — for the summers of ‘15, ‘17, and ‘18. Each summer ten young men clad in Vineyard Vines pastels rent a house on the Vineyard and perform on a daily basis, bringing music, camaraderie, and joy to the island communities.

As well as a full-time vocalist each summer, I was the Social Media Manager in ‘15, the Chair of the 25th Anniversary Reunion Committee in ‘17, and Business Manager in ‘18. I now have the privilege of serving on the Board of Directors. Each summer was spectacular in its own right, and made memorable for its own reasons, but in an effort to keep this concise, I’ll offer three distinctive memories:

Top left: VS ‘15 | Top right: VS ‘17 | Bottom: VS ‘18

One afternoon in early June 2015, a few of the guys and I went to Great Rock beach on a day off. It was quiet, warm, calm… ideal Vineyard conditions in June, before the island gets a tad busy. After swimming out to the Rock, we took a few moments to bask in the sunshine and salt air. I still don’t remember which of us began singing first, and at this point it hardly matters, because what followed was one of the most magical moments of my life. Coming in one after another, the five of us sang a completely impromptu cover of the Beach Boys’ God Only Knows. We didn’t plan it, didn’t direct it, didn’t even comment on it… we simply grew into it. It just happened. A moment of pure magic.

2017 was a challenging year for me in The Vineyard Sound for myriad reasons, not the least of which being that I was Chair of the Reunion Committee, which is to say I was up to my balls in stress planning the best Anniversary The Vineyard Sound alumni had ever experienced. I worked tirelessly from October 2016 all the way up until Saturday, July 29th 2017, the night of the 25th Anniversary Alumni Concert at the Tabernacle in Oak Bluffs. Fortunately, the concert itself was an absolute HIT! We had about ~75 alumni present, including all ten of the original guys from ‘92! Over two thousand audience members from all ages.

It was a truly momentous occasion, eclipsed perhaps only by the raucous mild-mannered after-party. Before things got too silly, the ten of us in that year’s iteration (that is, the ten active members of The Vineyard Sound in ‘17) joined the ten OG members from ‘92 and shared songs, drinks, and memories with one another. To see the fruits of their labor 25 years prior was overwhelming for these guys who never thought we’d make it this far. And to see just how excellent and driven and generous our a cappella ancestors are had me straight-up fan-boying all over the place. In that moment, I realized that I was a part of something far bigger and more special than myself. I realized I was standing on the shoulders of giants.

I had the great privilege and pleasure of returning to The Vineyard Sound in 2018 as one of that year’s Business Managers. Together, Mark Thurner (Co-Business Manager), Connor Bennion (Music Director), and I set out to lead the group to its most successful financial year, as well as completely overhaul our infrastructure in an effort to ease transitions between Business Managers year-to-year. But more importantly, the ten of us grew closer than I could ever have hoped for. The trust we found in one another allowed us to give back to the community that feeds and takes care of us each summer, to share our spirit of brotherhood, tradition, and music with the island.

Early-on in June we were contracted to perform a short virtual performance for a life-long fan. We were asked to sing Signed, Sealed, Delivered and Change In My Life, neither of which are ideal for an 8:00am performance. The ten of us grumbled out of bed, put on our Vines classics, slammed some coffee, and accepted the FaceTime. Our attitude shifted immediately upon seeing our client in what looked like her hospital bed. She was full of kindness and cheer and gratitude for us singing her two favorite Vineyard Sound songs. She told us she’d been coming to our shows for over ten years now and was bummed she wouldn’t be able to make it to an in-person concert this summer, but was thrilled we could sing to her now. We performed to the best of our abilities, gave our well-wishes, and said our goodbyes. It would be the last time we’d see her.

Months later, just after our Farewell to Summer show at the Old Whaling Church, her husband approached me to congratulate us on a wonderful season. He told me his wife passed only a few weeks after we sang for her, and that she couldn’t have been happier to have heard us one final time. I learned in that moment that this group isn’t about how much I can succeed musically/professionally, or about paying respects to the dozens of brothers who’ve come before me. Each summer The Vineyard Sound has the opportunity to bring joy into people’s lives, and if we succeed even just a tiny amount, everyone wins.