Writer, Composer, Director, Actor

I am a writer, composer, director, actor,  and activist based in central North Carolina.

 

     My recent collaborations include a playwriting commission with Culture Mill, a performing arts group in Saxapahaw, NC; a dance and vocal project with Okwui Okpokwasili, a New York-based choreographer from Yale University;  Raleigh News and Observer and ProPublica for a documentary on race relations in Alamance, which won an EMMY-AWARD. I have performed for public figures such  as Hillary Clinton and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. My original play, "Spirit of Wyatt Outlaw: Final Peace", in which I also directed and composed music, premiered to both a live and live-stream audience with great reception on February 26th, 2021. I have written screen plays for Grammy-nominated artists, and  I am currently  in development for a new writing project, nonfiction, to be announced in 2023.

 

     After college, served in South Korea and across the Southeastern US as an Army musician; a profession rooted in ambassadorship and troop morale. My military medals and awards include Army Commendation, Army Achievement, Korean Defense, and National Defense medals, as well as the Commander’s Coin from former Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, General Peter Chiarelli, among others. 

 

     I received my training from the music and theatre programs at the Greensboro College School of the Arts in North Carolina, as well as the Armed Forces School of Music on the Navy’s Joint Expeditionary Base in Little Creek, Virginia.

     My days at  college were filled with many hours of learning about the greatest artists of their generations . So much of my studies during that time was of jazz and classical music-everyone from Miles Davis to Lee Morgan as well as classical and spiritual musicians like Wagner, Mahalia Jackson and William Grant Still. I continue my studies in acting through the Uta Hagen Method.

 

     My stepfather, a South Carolinian born on the edge of the great depression,  would often say during hard times, "can't win for losin’". Growing up, we moved from house to apartment to trailer and back again, 11 times by the time I was 12 years old. His stories always kept us entertained during the "storms".  We looked to storytelling for comfort. It was here that I realized  everyone has a story, and those stories so often lie in the smallest, most seemingly mundane moments in our lives. I work to capture those stories through the powerful and influential mediums of music and theatre.