Shuffled

Role: Actor

Featured in: 48 Hr. Film Festival

Achievements: Nominated for Best Directing and Best Overall Film

“Shuffled was a fascinating project to be involved with from the point of view of both an actor and a filmmaker. From an actor’s viewpoint, I had to reach inside myself to understand how to be upset about something that I didn’t remember happening. A lot of acting teachers suggest to create a character history, and through that history you understand what drives the character; what their motivations are. Which I could do – up until the accident the character had. To be in love with someone you don’t remember being in love with was a fascinating emotion to explore. From a filmmaker’s viewpoint, I enjoyed watching my director connect the images we filmed to different memories I had lost. My favorite shot we set up was when you see a playing card reflected in my eye. Like the memory is just in reach – but I can’t see it in its full form.”

Expiration Date

Role: Actor

Featured in: 48 Hr. Film Festival

Achievements: Winner of Best Overall Film and Best Song

“Expiration date was a joy during every moment of filming. I remember several times when the entire cast and film crew was in hysterical fits of laughter. A lot of this film was unscripted, and I’m glad it was. My scene partner James Lillin is one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. When he and I are set loose (as we were in this piece,) magic ensues. This was the first real film piece I had ever acted in, and boy did I learn a lot. This was the beginning of me finding my love for acting for the camera. I’ve come so far. And I owe this project a lot for getting my feet wet in something I’m now ultimately passionate about.“

Daisy Pulls It Off

Role: Headmistress

Walter Gloor Mainstage Production

“I can honestly say me being half British was part of the reason I got this role – even though the director didn’t know that at the time. I can slip into a British accent easily because I grew up hearing one every day from my father. However, I truly believe the real reason I got this role was not to do with my perfect RP, but because of what I did at the callback. I approached the scene differently then anybody else did. The scene was simple – you discipline the main character as the headmistress of the school. And you could easily just be passively disappointed in Daisy, and that’s all. But I chose a different tactic; discipline from compassion. Discipline rooted in knowing she could do better, and expecting as such. Discipline rooted in love. And I made that a main tenant of my character after I officially was cast in the role. A disciplinary who is guided by love. And I think that made this character more dynamic and three dimensional than she was written.”

James and the Giant Peach

Role: Mother

Walter Gloor Mainstage Production

“Playing a mother was nothing new to me. When I was young, I often got cast as a mother due to being taller than any other girl in my class. In fact, the very first role I ever played when I was only ten year’s old was a mother. But to this day, I’ve never been a mother in real life, and here was a role that not only demanded that I be a mother, but in one scene, demanded I watch my child be abused from beyond the grave and not be able to do anything about it. This was a very adult emotion to experience in a children’s play. I brought myself to tears every night in that show, watching my “son” being beaten before me, knowing I was a ghost who couldn’t intervene. The rest of the show was fun, lighthearted, and from the vantage point of this child going on an adventure. And that had challenges of its own to perform. But this play is much like life overall: it’s a wonderful adventure, but every once in a while there’s a part of it that’s immensely painful – often thrown in without warning. And like I had to learn in this play to balance these extremes of emotions as a mother to a fictional child, we have a job as actors to balance those extremes of emotions in everyday life. So, for being a kid’s show, it had a profound alignment to the challenges of adulthood: which as a young adult performer, made this one of the most unique shows I’ve ever done.

BFA Acting Senior Recital

Role: Auteur

For my BFA Acting recital, the assignment was simple: Pick four pieces: one classical scene, one modern scene, one Shakespearean scene, and the final piece is up to the actor. With such loose guidelines, I had to ask myself: what kind of story do I want to tell? Most students chose to do their recitals with a partner. I chose to do mine alone, picking two actors to help me as my scene partners. I tackled the theme of existentialism, as I was going through an existential crisis of my own at the time, and I wanted to explore it and process it through my acting. And irony of ironies, while performing a recital about about my own existential woes, a little over a month later, my best of all best friends committed suicide. In hindsight, I believe it was no accident that these two events happened in quick succession. I believe this performance was meant to coincide with his death, so that I would be able to process those feelings of existentialism early, before the loss. Never before has when a performance occurred had such a profound effect on how I viewed the performance afterwards. This is a performance piece I will truly never forget, as it made me face the line between death and life in the realm of both fact and fiction. And the lessons I learned I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Role: Columbia

SUNY Fredonia “Litterbox Crew” Production

“Oh boy, was this a blast and a half. The cast parties alone where a wild ride. This is the kind of role that gives you an experience of a lifetime and a connection to your fellow cast members unlike any other. I was a part of a family when I was in this show. The man who played Frank-N-Furter is a best friend of mine to this day, Andrew Vitovitch. This was my first role in university, and it was a wonderful, thrilling experience for a first role. Not only is Columbia a wildly fun role to play, but a show like this requires a trust in your fellow cast members that not a lot of other shows require. Physical intimacy is required with your entire cast. Not one or even two fellow actors: the entire cast. And when you all share that with each other, you need to create a safe place to explore each other, as well as yourself. And that’s exactly what we did. The trust we had to develop for our fellow cast members created a family. We became each other’s support system. We shared tears, beers, and cheers. And we put on one hell of a show. I’m glad I had this experience of family, because a sense of family was exactly what I needed to begin my university journey with.“

Hamlet

Role: Francisco

Buffalo Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts

“The beginning of the show required me to stand perfectly still over a body for 20 min while the house filled around me. Just by standing there, I had to set the scene and create the environment the audience was about to explore. I didn’t have many lines in this show, but that didn’t matter to me – this was to me a profound role in itself, as all roles are. I had the first line. And I loved playing this part so much. To open a show is a profound responsibility – you are creating for the audience and the fellow cast the environment of the play. You are opening the book to the first page. You are taking a step with your audience members down the rabbit hole. And this is my favorite Shakespeare play. It was an honor and a privilege to take the audience into the world of my favorite play, and a pleasure to play a man. As a non-binary person, I often don’t get to play men, so it’s nice to explore the other part of who I am artistically.”

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Role: Scanlon

Buffalo Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts

“A lot of people assume actors are inherently good liars. This, at least for me, couldn’t be further from the truth. Acting is not the art of lying. It is the art of telling the truth. There must be genuine emotion and life behind the character you play. And I learned this from Andrew Kottler, the man who directed this production. He taught me through this show what acting truly is. This show shaped who I am as an artist today. And I say both of those things without a hint of hyperbole. I had, I believe, less than 5 lines in this entire show. But I was constantly on stage. So I had to become this character, in every sense of the word, to give life to the silences. I had to act with my soul on fire – which was a very vulnerable place to be in, but it taught me to do so in every role I’ve played since. It’s one of the smallest roles I’ve ever played. And to date – it is one of my favorite roles I’ve ever played. Something he said in rehearsal about acting, I’ll never forget: ‘Every feeling you feel as an actor is a valid feeling for your character to be feeling.’ I learned to trust my gut, and trust my emotions. They always gave me exactly what I needed.

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