Candidate for
Associate Professor of Acting
Diane & Hal Brierley Resident Acting Company (BRAC).
Dallas Theater Center
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With the generous support of Diane and Hal Brierley, Artistic Director Kevin Moriarty reinstated Dallas Theater Center’s resident acting company as he began his tenure as Artistic Director for this Tony Award-winning regional theatre. Moriarty’s purpose for bringing back the construct of a resident acting company (which the theatre had not had since its time under founding Artistic Director Paul Baker) was to nurture professional actors within the North Texas community and enable them to make Dallas their artistic home. He also sought to enhance Dallas Theater Center’s artistic profile (leading to an eventual Tony win) and create ongoing collaborative relationships. With currently 11 members among its ranks with a diversity reflective of the community it serves, the Diane and Hal Brierley Resident Acting Company, or BRAC, has since become a signature component of DTC’s presence in the Dallas Arts District.
The benefits of being selected to be part of a resident company of actors at a regional theatre of DTC’s caliber are so numerous. From the collegiality that is built with not just the other artists in the Company, but also with the staff and production team, the theater truly realizes the vision that Artistic Director Kevin Moriarty had of making this feel like an “artistic home.” I repeatedly remind myself how fortunate and grateful I am to have a place where productions are selected with me and my fellow actors in mind--where doors have been opened that have allowed me to work with renowned directors, actors, playwrights, and designers (such as Beowulf Boritt, Jerry Zaks, and Robert Kaplowitz—all Tony winners) operating at the top of their game in the American theatre.
The environment raises the bar for me as an artist and makes me strive with every task to merit the honor of being a BRAC member. My recent performance as Ebenezer Scrooge in the theatre’s annual biggest public draw A Christmas Carol (a role they have asked me to reprise in 2024) demanded some of the most thorough preparation and detail work I have ever undertaken as an artist in my 40+ years on the stage. It underscores a notion I bring to my pedagogy—that artists learn with every single role they inhabit—the work never stops. With every production I am fortunate enough to do at DTC, I encounter some new artistic challenge, sometimes technically (as in a production of Into the Woods where the typically peripheral Narrator character was turned into the driving force and facilitator of the entire piece), and sometimes aesthetically (as in a moving and current bilingual production of Our Town, adapted by a Pulitzer Prize-winner Nilo Cruz).
I look forward to the upcoming season in which I will participate in five consecutive (and very different) productions, including a new and exciting adaptation by Karen Zacarias of the American classic novel Shane. This work allows me to continue to be able to do something I discuss in my Teaching Philosophy—teach what I am living. What an incredible creative opportunity it is to be inspired, to risk, and to grow like this. I never take that for granted.