About

I’m a Chicagoland actor, musician and filmmaker.

I’ve been a freelance violinist around town since graduating from Northwestern University in 1992, playing regularly with the Chicago Sinfonietta and the Joffrey Ballet. I spent two summers at Interlochen, and three summers at Joseph Fuchs’ Alfred University Chamber Music Institute. I studied with Myron Kartman at Northwestern, where I also co-founded the Ad Hoc String Quartet with Paul Vanderwerf (and at least 6 other musicians!).

I acted a fair amount when I was a kid and in high school, and missed it a great deal after college, so I studied improv for a year, went to Oxford to study Shakespeare, and trained a lot at the Piven Theatre Workshop.

In the midst of designing a website to shamelessly promote myself, I stumbled upon a liking for web design, which in turn led to a third career trajectory that lasted almost 10 years. However, as of February 2010, I am no longer a web designer.

Film crept in there because my best friend had a nice camera and we started shooting. Most of our films have been connected with Split Pillow, where I’ve also had the pleasure of working regularly with my wife, Mary-Terese Cozzola, who is a fantastic writer and director. Ah, you’ve noticed that many of the tags in my blog are film-related, and yet I don’t have a page dedicated to film. Yeah, that’s interesting.

We have a dog named Django. Don’t try to pet her too soon. It’s really best to ignore her, in fact. She’s an Australian Cattle Dog, mixed with something else (maybe Australian Kelpie?). We’ll get a DNA test at some point.

I grew up in Alaska

It’s cold. It’s dark. But only half the year. The other half is bright and, well, not so cold. My family moved to Anchorage in 1978 when I was 8. Our previous home had been Denton, Texas, and prior to that several small Kansas towns of which I have (blessedly) no memory. For many years I told my friends I was from Texas, and kept the twang as evidence. By the time Dallas went off the air I’d finally realized we weren’t moving back. And it’s cool to be from Alaska. The twang eventually gave way to an American newscaster non-accent, which has been occasionally described as “mellifluous.” I’ve lived in Chicago now for over 20 years, but I still consider myself an Alaskan even though the math says I only lived there 10 years. Go figure.