Heinz Time: Here's the catch-up.

All right. So. Here’s what’s going on in my life right now, just for a little background’s sake: I’m an actor here in Seattle, which means I’m a barista here in Seattle. I work at Diva Espresso to feed the stomach, and I act and write and perform standup comedy to feed the soul. I have never been one to sit around and wait for the jobs to come to me (if they do, AWESOME – I’ll take what I can get), but I’m not Matt Damon or Johnny Depp: as funny as it may sound, high-powered producers aren’t scrambling to their phones to punch in my number and BEG me to be in their next big picture.

So instead of being bored and feeling sad that nobody wants to cast me in anything, I try to do my own stuff. This time two years ago, longtime friend and collaborator Bryan Sullivan and I started a two-man theatre company – Wanderweg Productions – and hit the road with a play that I wrote called The Celtic Cross, which is what we described as “The Fox and the Hound with guns and Irish accents.” It’s about two men who grow up in war-torn Belfast during “The Troubles,” and become friends in spite of their circumstances. As they get older, they become more entrenched in their ideals, and they must choose between their friendship and their beliefs. I wrote the play when I was studying in Dublin and London, and in 2012, Bryan and I took it on a six-month, six-state tour. We both moved back to Seattle this time last year, and there honestly hasn’t been a whole lot of action from Wanderweg since, and 2013 was a pretty quiet year for me on the acting front (I was only in two staged productions the entire year, as well as a few short films).

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A smattering of the work I did in 2013

Left: Acting in World's Fair at Jet City Improv with the wonderful Margaret Erickson

Above: Starring in Tyler Brown's short film Alone in the Dark

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Which leads to the current flurry of activity, my recent return to standup comedy, my creating an email list, and my sudden drive to move things forward. 2014 has already proved to be a very fruitful year, and I’ll give a fuller update on the next post. But I’ll say right now that the first half of the year is pretty much lined up: in less than a month I will be moving to Portland, ME, where I will be working with Portland Stage Company (in an acting capacity) for six weeks. Then, this July, I’ll be returning to South Africa for the National Arts Festival. Again, more to come on this later.

Thank you again for your interest! If you haven’t already, please like my Facebook page (just click here). More from me soon!

Matthew