Doctor Faustus, Brave Spirits Theater

I’ve been writing, acting, doing improv, and teaching for my entire adult life.

I come from a family of theater artists. My dad is a professional storyteller (not The Moth—traditional folktales, myths, and more), and my mom was a drama teacher and director. I grew up going to storytelling festivals and doing homework in the catwalks during rehearsal.

For a while I lived in Chicago, where I did theater and improv and mime and also was a dancing pirate on Navy Pier (if you know, you know). Then I moved to Washington, D.C., where I did a whole lot more theater and improv, not as much mime, absolutely NO dancing pirates, (though videos of that show made my wife fall in love with me) and a lot of teaching.

In my career as a teaching artist I’ve worked with a wide diversity of age, background, and experience level. At Imagination Stage I led/facilitated ability-inclusive classes. I toured with InterAct Story Theater doing story drama in early childhood classrooms. I taught improv to adults of all levels and kids as young as 1st grade. I designed and led virtual summer camps during the pandemic. I developed a series of playwriting courses for the Shakespeare Theater Company. Since 2022, I’ve begun hosting my own online playwriting classes.

In March of 2020 I began a low-residency MFA program—“low-residency” means it was mostly from home (I swear I planned to do this before 2020)—and graduated in 2022 with my degree in playwriting & screenwriting. In 2024, I moved to Los Angeles to develop my screenwriting career.

My strange and delightful path has taken a lot of interesting turns. It’s also included such highlights as: being a pretend patient for med school students, teaching the GRE, being a radio call-in show “guest,” doing voiceover for police promotional exams, and phone sales of gourmet dog biscuits.