Bonny & Robyn welcome Jon Royal to the podcast for the final episode of Season One!

Jon Royal is a director, teaching artist, and facilitator who is based in Nashville, TN. In 2004 he received a fellowship to study with Ming Cho Lee and Constance Hoffman, forever changing his approach to art, work, and life. Since then, he has directed, or appeared in productions for In Other People’s Shoes, First Stage, Tennessee Performing Arts Center, Nashville Children’s Theatre, Nashville Repertory Theatre, Nashville Shakespeare Festival, Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Actor’s Bridge Ensemble, Street Theatre Company, Berry College, Nashville School of the Arts, and other organizations. In 2016, he was a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation’s National Observership Class, in which he had the privilege of working with Liesel Tommy on the Public Theatre’s production of Party People. In 2019 he was named Best Theatre Director by the Nashville Scene. Recently, he has begun working behind the camera, directing the concert documentary Walk Together Children: The 150th Anniversary of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, which has been distributed nationally by PBS, and producing The Creswell Story, a student driven film project that studies the history of Nashville’s Arts Middle Magnet School for the Performing Arts and its namesake. Jon has been working with youth and students of all ages for over thirty years. He’s currently on the faculty of Tennessee Governor’s School for the Arts where he teaches Devising Through Community Building. He’s also a part of a national design team that develops Shakespeare and Social Justice curriculum for high school classrooms around the country. He facilitates workshops for RACE FORWARD’s Government Alliance on Race and Equity cohorts, helping public servants engage with artistic practice to deepen their sense of collaboration in their work. Jon is currently the recipient of Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation’s Lloyd Richards New Futures Residency, where he is an artist in residence at St Louis Black Repertory Company.

Special thanks:

Berg (music)

An Emmy Award nominated actor who has also graced the boards of Broadway, Eric Petersen talks about working on stage, screen and beyond and how he stays afloat in a challenging industry.

Eric Petersen most recently can be seen in High Desert for Apple TV opposite Patricia Arquette, and can next be seen in Nathan Fielder’s The Curse on Showtime. He also recently starred in the AMC series Kevin Can F*** Himself, alongside Annie Murphy. A dark comedy that mixes single-cam and multi-cam shooting in front of a studio audience to re-examine the trope of the passive sitcom wife.

A veteran of television and the Broadway stage, Petersen’s previous television credits include the TV Land series Kristie, Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, & Chicago Fire amongst many others. Eric was nominated for an Emmy Award for his role of Ant’ney the pigeon on Madagascar: A Little Wild. He was also seen in the Oscar Nominated Coen Bros. film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. On stage Petersen has starred in the hit Broadway production and national tour of “Shrek: The Musical,” as Shrek. On Broadway he was seen in “School of Rock” as Dewey Finn and the musical “Escape To Margaritaville,” as Brick. His additional theatre credits include productions of “Peter and the Starcather” (Broadway) and “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” (1st National Tour). He attended Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, where he earned a degree in Acting.

Connect with Eric:

@EricPete Insta

@ThePortlyGentleman Fashion Insta

Bonny and Robyn start 2024 off by welcoming Evelyn O'Neal to the mic. Actor, Director, Puppeteer and Costume Extraordinaire Evelyn hones in on how to navigate life and career transitions--particularly which tools she found most helpful in moving on to the next exciting chapter.

Special Thanks:

Berg (music)

Happy holidays listeners! We are taking a month off....but look forward to resuming our acting/wellness adventures with you in 2024.

On episode 3, Robyn and Bonny have a chat with a passionate and resolute artist named Queen. At the height of the pandemic, she transferred from The Eastern Shore Community College to Radford University, where she has been studying Theatre and has plans to graduate this December. Queen is a heartfelt actor who has had the opportunity to embody characters from a variety of genres….. From contemporary roles like Undine in Fabulation, Or The Re-Education of Undine by Lynn Nottage to the classical world of Shakespeare, playing Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. Most recently, Queen played Miss Rosemary in the Children’s Show Cows Don’t Fly and other known facts. At the time of this recording, Queen is in the midst of mounting a One-Woman Show that focuses on the Black Transgender Experience titled “One In A Billion.”

EGOT = an acronym for the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards, is the designation given to people who have won all four of the major American art awards.

Pose = a television show that ran from 2018-2021 on FX

For more on Laverne Cox, visit https://lavernecox.com/

For more on Theatrical Intimacy Education, visit https://www.theatricalintimacyed.com/

Special thanks:

Berg (music)

On Episode 2, Robyn and Bonny welcome Denis McCourt Stryjewski to the mic. Denis is dedicated to acting, writing, and directing for the stage. Denis began studying theater at the University of South Florida, and, in 2003 he graduated with a BA in Theater, with an emphasis on Performance. Then, in 2008, he received his MFA from the University of Florida, in Gainesville. Thirteen years later, Denis is now a member of the Theater faculty at Idyllwild Arts Acadmey. His professional creative ventures since leaving Florida have included teaching for ten years at the New York Film Academy’s Hollywood campus, directing for Coachella Valley Repertory, an hour from Idyllwild, and “convincing Long Beach Shakespeare Company to do contemporary works.”

For more on the Alexander Technique, see

https://amsatonline.org/

For more on Idyllwild Arts Academy, see

https://idyllwildarts.org/

Special Thanks:

Berg (music)

Join Co-Hosts Robyn & Bonny as they welcome Emily P. Faith onto the podcast for the first episode!

Emily is a multi-disciplinary theatre artist, podcaster and drama therapist currently based in Dallas, TX. Robyn, Bonny and Emily discuss drama therapy, the artist’s challenge of time/money, identity, AI, meditation and breath work, geography, diversity, consuming a variety of art forms, travel, producing your own work, building community, theatre training, balance, and more. Of note, Emily was once a student of Robyn’s at Lipscomb University in Nashville, where Bonny also did freelance work, so all parties have some history and so enjoyed reconnecting for this episode.

TPAC (Tennessee Performing Arts Center). Visit https://www.tpac.org/education-community/ for more info.

The Writer’s Strike was ongoing at the recording of this episode. See https://www.wga.org/ for more info.

More on Dr. Scott Sonenshein can be found at https://www.scottsonenshein.com/

Find out more about Emily and connect with her in multiple ways via her website https://emilypfaith.com/

Special thanks:

Robert Hernberger (Technical Director)

Berg (music)

Hosts Robyn Berg and Bonny O'Neill introduce themselves and the podcast, a wellness journey for actors.