VANCOUVER ACTING
CLASSES + WORKSHOPS

I remember the Christmases more than the Hanukkahs. Take, for example, The Night of the King Crab. I’m going to say it was 1972. In my memory, everything about that night is wrapped in a burnt-orange and avocado-green glow. We were seated at the dining room table -- me and my father on one side, my older brother, Tim, and my mother on the other. Me and Tim were kids, and my parents were still in their 30s. Instead of the usual turkey or roast beef, my mother had prepared Alas

When cutting a piece of Gâteau St. Honoré, you better make sure the knife is wet with hot water and the angle is just right or the cream sticks to the blade and the slice falls apart on its way to the plate. Total pain in the ass. I was completing this task, thinking about the Sinsemilla spliff waiting for me at home, when the bell above the coffee shop door jingled and a teenaged girl walked in. I recognized her straight away. She was about 17, tall and gawky, with thick gla

I hated Muhammad Ali. I first remember seeing him on ABC’s Wide World of Sports when I was a little kid. He was mocking his opponent at a pre-fight press conference. When they rolled clips of Ali punishing a series of bloody-faced boxers in the ring, he appeared to be enjoying their suffering. I had a nightmare that Ali was beating up my father in my family’s kitchen. My mother and brother looked on helplessly as I grabbed paper napkins from their rattan holder on the table

Not so long ago, I was cleaning out our hallway closet and discovered that between my wife and I, we were in possession of 14 black baseball caps. All of them were crew gifts from film and TV shows, and most of them we had never worn and never would. I gathered up the collection to leave in a box behind our building. There are quite a few homeless people trying to get by in the West End, and most “donated” items get snatched up fast. I set the box down in the alley, then hesi

"The objective of life is to live in the furious state until your heart stops.” That’s what my father once told me when I was in my 20s, and that’s exactly what he’s doing now, at the age of 84. A retired professor of Sociology, he and my mother still share the home I grew up in. His true pride and joy is the yard behind their house. The patio back there is constructed entirely of bricks, hundreds (thousands?) of them, pressed together on a foundation of sand. Upon the bric

In 2020, I had the honour of writing and directing a one-man show, Casey and the Octopus, performed by then 19-year-old Casey Wright. The show was based on Casey’s life as a cancer survivor and all-around unstoppable, inspirational bad ass. The show was produced by The Virtue Society and The East End Boys' Club, and stage managed by Haven Acting Studio’s new media manager, Andrea Heald-Miller. Being a part of this show was a career highlight and I will always carry a piece of