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DePaul University

MFA Candidate, class of 2026

2024-2026. Training at The Theatre School of DePaul University for a Master’s in Fine Arts in Acting. While I will be playing roles within the repertory theatre at TTS, the focus is training and synthesizing new skills and technique with process. 2024-2025 school year roles include Dionyza/Late Pericles in PERICLES directed by Enrico Spada and Agatha in Jen Silverman’s THE MOORS directed by Jeremy Ohringer.

WRAPPED

WRAPPED

People Places and Things

by Duncan MacMillan

TAZ Theatre Company
Tucson, AZ

Reasons To Be Pretty

by Neil Labute

Temple of Music and Arts Cabaret Theatre
Tucson, AZ

Venus In Fur

by David Ives

Live Theatre Workshop
Tucson, AZ

August 3 - August 27, 2023. In college, of my dearest friends (and roommate at the time), Michael Monicatti, handed me this script between classes and told me “You have to play her.” I didn’t see it then, but I did read the script during my next class instead of taking notes. Years and years later, I see it. Vanda was some of the most fun I’ve had in the theatre. A massive, “sport of acting” show. Lungs was a haul of the soul, and Venus a haul of technique and energy. To do these two two-handers back to back taught me so much about process and how necessary it is to listen to the needs of the character, the show, in order to craft the performance. This show also acted as a great litmus test of my strengths and weaknesses. I feel I have some new clarity about what I bring to the table and what kind of work I want to do.

Lungs

by Duncan MacMillan

Live Theatre Workshop
Tucson, AZ

May 11 - June 10, 2023. This was a show made for me. The freedom afforded by a script that dictates no set, no props, no indicating light changes, no furniture, etc, was a treat. Felt like I was on a playground. The challenge: FOCUS. I came in rusty. Straight out of the pandemic and all that came with it: the depression, the languishing, the grieving, the mental fog, and into this show was an enormous ask. Can you be here? Can you listen? Can you be here and listen for an hour and a half straight… every night? It was all about the relationship between these two people with nowhere to hide. And wow. As an actor, that felt like such a gift. Had some breakthroughs with emotional integration and access and by the end of the run, felt very strong in terms of focus - all that exercise paid off.

Heroes of the Fourth Turning

by Will Arbery

play reading @ The Rogue
Tucson, AZ

Hamlet

by William Shakespeare

Mended Wing Theatre Company
North Carolina tour

Boston Marriage

by David Mamet

Live Theatre Workshop
Tucson, AZ

May 2024. After working on Lungs, such brilliant dialogue, such beautiful storytelling about human experience, I knew I’d love to work on other plays by him. Just so happened the director I worked on Lungs with, Robert Encila, had been wanting to do People Places and Things for quite some time and was just waiting for the right collaborators. I’ll be playing Emma opposite Susan Arnold’s Doctor/Therapist/Mother, which is sort of a Tucson dream come true as she’s one of my most admired actors in this city.

November 4 - November 19, 2023. I will be playing Carly in Next Stage Theatre’s presentation of Reasons To Be Pretty. I am totally not on board with doing Neil LaBute in 2023, even less so after being in the rehearsal room. But I am doing it and I am also paying the piper for accepting it. I guess I can now say I tried it and I like it as much as I thought I would. Very little to not at all.

March 26, 2023. Holy shit do I want to play Emily in a full production of this show. Christopher Johnson’s programming for The Rogue’s play reading series here has been some of my favorite work curated in this city. It’s relevant, it’s challenging, it’s a really good play to put up for an audience of liberal white people. I thought a lot about Theatre of the Oppressed while working on this. Had a lot of fun crafting that final monologue with Christopher. Walked away sad to not be working on it for longer.

February - March, 2023. Holed up with three other actors and a director for a month on Ocracoke Island, NC to rehearse a bold and (really I wouldn’t say this if it wasn’t) beautiful four actor, one hour cut of Hamlet. Played Ophelia, Gertrude, and the Gravedigger. Emmet Temple will never cease to amaze me. The way they cut to the marrow of Shakespeare’s plays to present them in a new and accessible way has been incredibly rewarding to work on as an actor. I am privileged to be invited back again and again to work with Mended Wing. This work is an example of the type of offer I would never turn down. We toured North Carolina playing for underserved schools in the rural districts and also for the communities. Got to spend time with students all over the state. Playing for young people is, I think, probably the closest we’ve got to the groundlings. Some of the toughest and most engaged and involved audiences I’ve ever shared with. Also got to spend an evening with Michelle Hensley and Vivienne Benesch because of the project and friends of friends. Some conversations with them encouraged me to finally take the plunge and apply for grad school next year. I’m ready. It’s time.

October 15 - November 19, 2022. Someday I will learn to not let my “if you’re not working you’re not a working actor” anxiety get the best of me and not take roles that do not speak to me. This is a glaring artist immaturity that I actually didn’t know I had. But following a time of scarcity, I said yes to every single project offered to me, and it was unwise. My gut and my head have always felt that Mamet just doesn’t need to be done right now. And my heart really doesn’t care about his plays at all. So I should have listened to that. But I didn’t. That out of the way, the great challenge of this show was that Catherine is SO FAR from me, so the ask on character work was steep. I never felt like I got there. That’s okay. I did learn some things about myself. The big upshot - a wonderful cast, director and crew. A bunch of people I really liked. Also I got to work with Judy Shahn on the Orkney Islands dialect and the whole thing was worth it for that alone. So, it wasn’t painful. But, I’m learning I’m not the type of actor who can take a job simply because it’s a job. If I don’t learn that lesson quickly, it will become painful fast.