I started rehearsals this week for Pump Boys and Dinettes at Miner's Alley Performing Arts Center in Golden, CO. I'll be playing Prudie Cupp — a waitress at the Double Cupp Diner in 1970's North Carolina — alongside a team of incredible actor/musicians. Pump Boys is a joyful, country-tinged musical and it has felt incredible to be back in rehearsals again after some time away. There's something about the first week — fresh scripts, stumbling through music together, the moment harmonies start to click — that reminds me exactly why I do this.
Which feels like a good moment to talk about the other half of my life.
If you've found your way to McLeod9 Creative, you may not know that I'm also a working actor. I grew up in Augusta, Georgia, the kind of kid who was either playing outside or putting on shows — usually both in the same afternoon. I studied Musical Theatre at the University of Miami, "pounded the pavement" in NYC, and spent years performing around the country. For the last decade I've made my home in Denver, where I've been lucky to work steadily in the theatre community I love.
Susannah in Goodnight Moon at the Denver Center. Photo credit: Adams Viscom
I've played Alison in Fun Home, Diane in Hurricane Diane, and played a mouse, a cow, and a bear in over 200 performances of Goodnight Moon at the Denver Center. And somewhere along the way, I launched my own photography business.
People sometimes ask how the two lives fit together. The honest answer is that they fit surprisingly well.
When I'm behind the camera photographing an actor for their headshots, I'm not just thinking about light and composition. I'm thinking about what it feels like to be on the other side of the lens — the vulnerability of it, the self-consciousness, the way a bad headshot can make you feel unseen and a great one can make you feel like yourself. I've been that person.
My job is always the same: help people feel comfortable enough that I can catch something real. Theatre trained me to do that. Two decades of learning how to inhabit a character, find the truth in a scene, and connect with an audience turns out to be surprisingly good preparation for making strangers feel at ease in front of a camera — whether that's an actor nervous about their headshots, a family who swears they're not photogenic, or a nonprofit trying to show the world what their mission actually looks like in action.
I genuinely believe it makes the work better — and I'm not ready to give either one up.
If you're in the Denver area, come see Pump Boys and Dinettes at Miner's Alley Performing Arts Center in Golden. And if you need a headshot — well, you know where to find me.