38 Pride of Lions written & directed by Alicia Hyde. The Macbeth Project was supposed to be my last play in college. But my friend Rob Caisley was working at Illinois Wesleyan that year and a student needed an actor for a project she was working on and wasn’t finding it there so he recommended me and arranged a meeting. Alicia and I met at The Coffee House in Normal, and I got the part. I played Bud, who would become the patriarch of the family, and it was 30 years of his and his family’s lives. I found out later that it was based on true stories about her family. We performed it in the original Phoenix space. So I would walk from ISU to IWU every night for rehearsal and it was the first play I ever did without knowing anybody before. This show grew to mean a lot to me personally, and I’m sure some of that is that they were so happy to have me. Up to that point I always felt it was my job to be grateful to be in a show, I never got the reverse, which was people grateful to have me there. This was (kind of) my last play in Bloomington-Normal and I’m glad I went out on a high note. Because second semester for me at ISU, The Macbeth Project aside, was a living nightmare due to complications with my financial aid, money, and the chair trying to ban me from classes. Nora Cortwright LITERALLY kept me alive that year. Maybe it was just life’s way of pushing me out of my comfort zone, BUT I WAS COMFORTABLE. Here’s a picture from the cast party of me and Alicia. #retrospective #1994 #prideoflions #aliciahyde #bud #illinoiswesleyanuniversity #thephoenix #bloomingtonnormal (at Illinois Wesleyan University) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5QK5VRJg3W/?igshid=11734966ddp7f