What’s your deal? Who are you and what’s your story?

I’m an actor, a New Jersey native, a former teacher, and a licensed New York City tour guide!

What most excites you about in taking on this acting opportunity at TAM?

As an actor, I travel from place to place and each organization has its own unique way of preserving, performing and producing live theatre and music. Discovering a new place and learning about who they are and what they do best is the most exciting part of
starting any gig.

Why Gilbert & Sullivan?

Gilbert & Sullivan’s works are the start of so much of what would become 20th century musical comedy—the material has become timeless because it’s just that good.

Who is your role model, and why?

I have admired the author and thinker Eckhart Tolle for some time. If anyone reading this happens to be depressed or angry or lost or in a state of flux, I would highly recommend catching him at a lecture or reading his books The Power of Now and/or A New Earth. His philosophy of life, focusing on “the now,” borrows from universal truths from all the world’s major religions. I’ve found Tolle’s writings and words to be absolutely transformative.

You can have dinner with any three powerful women in history. Who would you choose and why?

My favorite time period is the Guilded Age, so I’d choose suffrage movement icons Susan B. Anthony, and the British mother-daughter duo Emmeline and Sylvia Pankhurst. I’d be curious to ask these women about today’s continued struggles for equal pay, intimidation and harassment issues at work, and our “controversies” over breast-feeding and employers refusing to buy feminine hygiene products. I bet they’d be more than happy to stand up to critics of the #metoo movement.

What is your super power?

Imitation. I’ve learned how to act and sing and write and cook and a million other things by imitating others who do them far, far better.

Describe yourself in three alliterative words.

Nice. Neurotic. Norwegian.