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Arts Advocate

Growing up there was always music around me. Part of that may be my own slightly disturbing prediliction for everything, especially music, to continuously bounce around uncontrollably in my head. (ADHD, I later discovered.) Despite the fact that my father has a tin ear, both my parents loved music, (at least up till the rock explosion in the sixties,) and show music, classical music, and Gilbert and Sullivan operettas were always on the record player. My father loves words and poetry, and the clever lyrics of the operettas were a particular favorite.

There was also always visual art around us. My mother was a painter and sculpter trained at the Maryland Institute Collegee of Art in Baltimore. She later took up pottery and jewelry-making, and still does some exquisite quilting. Her work is wonderful - I have several of her creations in my house. She and my wife share an art-school background, (Jan got her degree from the Chicago Institute of Art in Commercial Art,) which gives them a special bond. We took frequent trips as kids to the galleries in Baltimore and Washington, and we all inherited, if not her talent and discipline, at least her love of art.

And then there were movies and plays. My mother inherited a love of movies from her Aunt Rose, who collected photos, magazines, and autographs of all the great stars through the silent era and into the early talkies, and could recite the names of even the bit players in most of the movies of her day. My mother picked up from there in the forties and fifties, and even after starting a family she loved watching movies on television. The pursuit of such trivia, (sorry,) became a love of mine in the sixties, and since video and DVDs have made it easier, I've been collecting mostly cult and foreign movies you don't get to see on television.

Back in 1973 I headed off to Emmitsburg, Maryland to attend Mount Saint Mary's College. It was there that I first got involved in theatre. (Well, I was in a play in fourth grade, but I wouldn't say I was "into" theatre back then.) From the very first cold-reading, in an audition for "The Front Page," it was in my blood. By the time I graduated in 1977 I had been involved in some capacity in every production of the Sock-n-Buskin Drama Society, served a year as Technical Director, and a year as Vice-President.

I managed to serve on the Boards of Directors for quite a few theatre groups over the years, not to mention playreading committees and other peripheral artistic positions. I have been on the board of the Maryland Community Theatre Festival Association (MCTFA) almost continuously since its very beginning in 1995. From there I got involved in the Eastern States Theatre Association (ESTA), of which Maryland is a member, and in turn the American Association of Community Theatre (AACT), of which ESTA is Region II.

I even started my own company, which we called The Alliance Theatre Workshop, back in 1989. There were a lot of wonderful theatre artists, actors, directors, and designers, all around me, and I put my heart, soul, and money into the group. ATW was a resounding success for almost five years, winning many fans and many awards, before crashing and burning in un-spectacular financial ruin.

It took several years to fully recover from the devastating loss of my baby, but it was then I discovered that I wasn't cut out for the very political job of an executive producer, or theatre company manager. I swore that I would stay out of the boardroom, and stick to the more creative tasks of acting, directing, and designing.

I did, however, devote much more of my time to AACT, serving on several committees and eventually two terms as Vice President for Membership. I still serve on committees, and in 2015 I was proud to be made a Fellow of The American Association of Community Theatre for my lifetime contribution.

 

I'm a long-time member of the American Association of Community Theatre.

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