About me

Bio

I’ve had a life rich with experiences. I grew up in, Star Junction, PA, a rural coal mining patch town. I spent most of my days fishing at a nearby reservoir or voraciously reading anything I could get my hands on.

At 19 years old, I joined the US Navy wherein I served as a Cryptologist and Russian linguist from 1983 - 1988. My time at sea was mostly on fast attack submarines and one aircraft carrier until I later served at a remote site in central Turkey. After my honorable discharge from the Navy I enrolled in Carnegie Mellon University where I received a Bachelor of Arts in Creative writing.

To support my artistic life, I’ve sold encyclopedias and cell phones, waited tables and tended bar and even owned a small sandwich shop/art gallery.

I moved to New York in March, 2007 from Pittsburgh, PA to continue my acting, writing and producing in an “industry” town. Since then, I’ve performed in many small theatrical, film and commercial productions. I’ve also produced two of my own full-length plays, one in the 2008 FringeNYC and the other in the 2015 Venus/Adonis Festival. In the FringeNYC show I performed and I directed my play in the Venus/Adonis Festival.

I’ve had many successes and many failures and I’ve learned from all of them. I often tell friends, coworkers and strangers, “life is meant to be lived”. I intend to continue living fully and artistically as long as I have life.

Training

My ongoing training with Josh Pais using his approach Committed Impulse, https://www.committedimpulse.com began in January 2019 with his Creative Invincibility Weekend Intensive. I decided to continue with Josh’s approach via his Advanced Lab and Character Lab to deepen my experience with his approach. I’ve found Committed Impulse to be essential to every aspect of acting from learning lines to character creation to performing.

Overall, my training began in 2007 with Bruce Ornstein with whom I studied for one year. In Bruce’s class we focused on exercises designed to stimulate and assist Improv, Scene Study and Performance using the practices of Stanislavsky, Adler and Meisner.

I’ve also studied Style and Naturalism with Richard Scanlon and Voice Over with Steve Harris, The Art of the Voice.

Publications and Productions

My first screenplay In the Shadow of the Night, now adapted into a feature-length screenplay, was selected as a Finalist in the 2018 Hollywood Just4Shorts Film and Screenplay Competition.

My most recent full-length play, A Room with a Futon was presented in the 2015 Venus/Adonis Festival where it was awarded an encore performance. Another full-length play, One Seat in the Shade was presented in the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival. My short plays have appeared in festivals in Pittsburgh, PA and Miami, FLA.

I also write narrative fiction. My short stories have appeared in the James White Review, Harrington Gay Mens Fiction Quarterly, The Front, Pittsburgh's Out (1997 Short Fiction Contest Winner), Blithe House Quarterly and The Oakland Review.

The poetry collection Naked Prayers (Six Gallery Press, 2007) has been my only published poetry collection thus far; however, individual poems have been published in The Oakland Review, Thieves Jargon and The Red River Review.