I had the great opportunity this spring to originate the role of Mike in Ed Ballou's The Glimmer, as part of the Roy Arias One-Act Festival, at the Payan Theatre, in NYC. It's a special artistic treat to be in original  productions, bringing one's unique take not to an established role and play, but to the first full birthing to the live, breathing experience of theatre. ​

Helmed by the inspired Sylvia Baeza, our small team delved into the work: ​relationships: to one's past, joy, resentments, yearnings, despair, willingness to be honest, and capacity to connect to another human being also wrestling with meaning, feelings, and the timing of change.

One of the things I love about Ed's work is its poetry. The way he layers symbol, tedium, climax, the allegoric, the particular, phrasing, imagery, and relationship feels so rich. Acting from scene one to the final curtain is a subtle and aesthetic pleasure all the more rewarding for its guiding aspects, as well as its more directly expressive ones.

Unfortunately, as is true for so many still-being-"discovered" artists, getting an audience to know about and then come see work by a new voice is often very challenging. We had to cancel one of our performances as there were no audience members. While that is a big disappointment to any performer, I had an extra twinge of sadness as it was also a kind of post-natal complication for the play. If it's a lot to go through labor, one naturally wants no further monkey wrenches thrown in the mix.​

I hope you are drawn to check out Ed's work, and to help support its increasingly complication-free (beyond all ther "regular" complications of the at times crazy process of making theatre) delivery out to the world. ​