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| This was the play that started it all. Dates and Mates at Aspen High School 1969. I did one other play there -- The Hobbit and I played Gandalf. That was also the start of my obsession with wizards. Unfortunately, I never saved anything from The Hobbit. Check out the handsome dude in the pictures. Yes, that was me. My first review was a good one and I pride myself that I never got a bad review for any play I performed in. |
| Dates and Mates (Mr. Benson) The Hobbit (Gandalf) |
| After High School, I lived in Northglenn, CO and performed with the Catharsis Community Theatre Group in 1971. In Dracula I played Professor Van Helsing. I helped design the cave set in the second picture using black visqueen. Other plays there included Barefoot In The Park as Velasco and Auntie Mame as Patrick Dennis grown up. |
| Dracula (Von Helsing |
| Laura was the first and only play where I got to play the leading man who gets the girl. Oh well. |
| Laura (Mark) |
| My first Melodrama. Little Nell. The woman in the bottom picture is Renae McKenny. She was my first true love and the beginning of my obsession with older women. She was in her late 20's. |
| Little Nell |
| I moved to Glenwood Springs in 1973 and started work in radio. I continued doing community theatre and in 1975 along with my second wife, Christine, invested in and began working with The Grand Old Playhouse Dinner Theatre. I did another melodrama and directed my first play, Fiddler on the Roof. It proved to be an amazing success playing to sold out audiences every night for eight weeks until we finally had to end it with a final sold out audience at the local high school auditorium. I also performed at CMC as John in Little Mary Sunshine. |
| Wildflowering of Chastity (Darkacre) Fiddler on the Roof (Director) |
| In 1985, I moved from Glenwood Springs to Grand Junction. I chose to end my radio career of 12 years to pursue a teaching degree. During those 12 years I was divorced and remarried and the father of two beautiful girls. At Mesa College I continued my theatre after about six years of non performance. In 1986 I divorced my third wife and married my fourth who co-starred with me in Brighton Beach Memoirs. It was a bitter sweet time. I anguished over leaving my daughters, but I rejoiced at finding a woman who was my soul-mate -- Lindy. She played my wife (Kate) in the play and we reprised the role. I also got to act with a wonderful actress, Roberta Hamilton (now Hamilton-Griggs). She played Blanche and remained a good friend of Lindy and me. She went on to acting fame in the Denver area. I hope to add a video of this play at some point to the website. |
| Brighton Beach Memoirs (Jack) |
| In 1988, I began my teaching career at Eaton High School north of Greeley, CO. Lindy and I moved there and I taught English, Journalism, Theatre and Speech for three years. I directed Arsenic and Old Lace and Cinderella |
| Eaton HS Arsenic and Old Lace (Director) Cinderella (Director) |
| In 1991 I quit teaching to return to college. My goal was to strengthen my theatre skills by taking classes at UNC in Greeley. Unfortunately they didn't offer a Master's degree, so all I could do was work towards a second emphasis. In the long run, it didn't help me much, but I got a lot of theatre work in with the Stampede Troup Community Theatre group in 1991 and 1992. |
| Working (Fireman) |
| This was my first two person play. I loved doing it. |
| A Walk In The Woods (John Honeyman) |
| Witness For The Prosecution (Sir Wilfred Robarts) |
| I think I look good in a white wig. |
| This was my second college production and my first performance in a Shakespeare play. I was at first nervous about learning the lines, but I discovered the reason Shakespeare has endured. His writing is so good, it was actually easier to memorize than other plays. It's almost like learning the words to a song. There is a flow and tempo to it. |
| Much Ado About Nothing (Leonato) |
| This was my second leading man role (although I didn't get the woman only the girl) and my only leading role in a musical. This was also the last play I did for the Independence Group and the largest audience I have ever performed for (over two thousand). What a kick! I also got to perform with a woman I greatly admired as an actress, Linda Johnston. |
| Annie (Daddy Warbucks) |
| I said that I never got a bad review, but up until I did the Summer Showcase in Denver in August of 1992, I had never been reviewed by "professionals." I am very proud of these reviews. |
| Summer Showcase of One Acts in Denver |
| My second work for a dinner theatre was in Westminster where I played the Detective in The 1940's Musical Comedy Murders. A great cast and a great time. I got to work with a man I consider a huge talent, especially for comedy, Jimmy Garland. He was trained in high school in Glenwood Springs by my second wife, Christine. We discovered that by accident. |
| The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940 (Michael Kelly) |
| I attempted to do some commercial work and got agency representation, but no real work. I did manage to land two jobs as an extra in the movie Ladybugs and an HBO film with Mariel Hemingway that I don't know ever got made. I don't remember the title, but I played a professor. I got the part because the director thought I looked like Robin Williams. |
| In 1994, I was cast in my second Shakespeare play, A Midsummer Night's Dream for Red Rocks Community College in Lakewood, CO. The director liked me so much, she offered me a teaching position at the college even though I did not have a Master's Degree. I taught theatre and Speech and I loved it, but the work was only part time and ultimately my ego and that of the woman who hired me, the department chair, clashed. I reluctantly left, but I wanted to get my Master's degree and return to teach Community College. I finally did get my degree, but so far I have never returned. I played the ass in the play and in my life. This was also the beginning of the end for Lindy and I. I don't know why except that I seemed unable or unwilling to be the responsible man she wanted me to be. I had too much fun pretending to be Peter Pan and I lost this precious gem in 1995 ten years after we were married and ten years after that in 2005 the world lost this beautiful light when she made her transition following a bout with Cancer. The really sad part is I don't think either one of us stopped loving each other, but we were never able to bring it back together. I will always miss her. |
| A Midsummer's Night Dream (Bottom) |
| In 1996 I returned to Grand Junction, CO and didn't do much with theatre. I got my first Master's Degree in 1998 in Language and Communication. I also got married that year for the fifth time to Sheryl Rogers. My girls think it was because she sort of looked like Lindy, but that lasted less than a year. I moved to Washington State in 1999 and came back to Junction in 2001. I finally returned to theatre in 2004 to play Ben in Death of a Salesman co-directed by Jimmy Garland, and then played the father in a musical version of Little Women, both for a community theatre group. I also worked for a dinner theatre there and played another father, Judge Andrew Carnes in Oklahoma. Unfortunately I have no pictures or reviews for those. That's it for now, but who knows................ |
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