2014

 I have to look at 2014 as my return to acting. The last show I had done was 1776 with Tennessee Rep in 2005. I had auditioned for a few things in the next couple of years without getting in them, but there was a good six-year period where I didn't audition at all. In 2013 the Rep announced they were doing Chicago, a show I found resistible to be a part of. But they got the rights taken away from them due to a conflicting national tour, and announced they were switching to Company instead.

I'd been a Sondheim fan for most of my life, but had never actually been in one of his shows. In Company, I knew I wasn't a "Bobby", but figured there were five other roles I was more-or-less right for. It was time to decide if theatre was "something I did" anymore, or if I was done with it forever. I auditioned. I got cast. And it was a great experience.

As it turns out, Company was the last Tennessee Repertory Theatre show, because the company changed its name for the 2014-15 season. And I also got cast in the first Nashville Repertory Theatre show, which was another Sondheim, Sweeney Todd.

But why stop there? I also was a SAG-AFTRA day player for the ABC show Nashville, where I played the leader of an AA meeting.

My career as an animator kept on moving along too. I had a great trip out west for the San Francisco International Film Festival, where I Want My Hat Back was screened, and also squeezed in a trip to Pixar! That film also screened in the New York International Children's Film Festival this year. And I also began work on I'm Brave!, recording the voice of Jonathan Banks.

The end of 2014 saw two deaths of important people in my life. Jack Dabdoub died, whom I had understudied for a few summers down in Galveston. He was a lovely, supportive person who had an amazing career. Sadder still was the death of Josie Helming, the main acting teacher of my college years at Memphis State. Josie also gave me my first professional acting job in The Red Balloon Players in Memphis.