I am Boo Boo the Fool

Hear ye, hear ye, ladies and gents, step right up to meet the Busiest Bitch in the World!

THRILL as she returns again and again to her calendar to maximize her time until she suffers from overwhelm!

GASP as she attempts to integrate several different friend groups with varying interests and priorities, adding a stressful element to otherwise fun events!

SCREAM as she yearns for deeper levels of human contact and intimacy, yet shirks from the responsibilities inherent in caring for another person!

CHEER as she staggers to the next stage of success, only to be confronted with obstacles and expectations she did not adequately prepare for!

You won’t want to miss this semi-monthly update, outlined with humor with none of the frustration and ennui to be palatable for a general audience!

Your favorite queer improve group continues its world tour! We’ll be repping Dallas along with the stars on Momma Tried at the Third Coast Improv Festival! If you’re in the area somehow, we’ll be performing Friday night, November 8th at 9:30pm!

Taskmaster: Live and Local!

One night only! On Sunday, November 24th @7pm, come on up to the Pocket Sandwich Theatre to see me attempt to win the favor of the illustrious Lauren Hearn and Jared Semen through competitive sport! It’s going to be wacky, possibly heartbreaking, and you only have ONE CHANCE to join in on the fun. Grab your tickets now!

The Improvised Holiday Musical!

And last but not least, you don’t want to miss Rodgers & Hammertime’s last shows of the year! We bring you a fully-improvised holiday musical just for you in this all-ages romp, accompanied by the incomparable Marcelo Berestovoy on guitar. You have three chances to see us in December — come ring out the old and ring in the new with a song!

Recent Gigs

Since my last update I have provided additional voices for the following shows on Crunchyroll:

• Tying the Knot with an Amagami Sister, Episode 2

Featured Role: Young Rentt Faina, The Unwanted Undead Adventurer Episode 12

So, story time! Alex Hom, who voices the main character of “Unwanted, Undead Adventurer” is a close friend of mine. He’s one of the first people I met when I moved to Dallas, we somehow managed to stay in touch through the pandemic, and we started working at Crunchyroll at around the same time.

So while I’m proud of my performance as his younger self in this episode-long flashback, the biggest win here for me is sharing a role with my buddy. Alex, I’m so jazzed to see you grow, and here’s to many more chances for us to stretch our wings together! One day we’ll both be Mythril Class voice actors.

Consume!

Performance is a VERY difficult subject to write fiction about. Something about capturing what’s special about stories THROUGH storytelling sends me personally down a wormhole. Acting and storytelling are subjective art forms, but they’re informed by centuries of craft passed down by masters. How does one testify to the bottom two-thirds of the iceberg while tapping into the electric, more personal aspects of theatre in a non-theatrical medium?

“Akane-Banashi” manages this tightrope act, and it does so with style. The ancient Japanese art of storytelling, Rakugo, takes center stage in a very human narrative that makes craft accessible to the layman. Akane is a dynamic protagonist who respects tradition without letting it dictate her path, who synthesizes lessons from her betters while refining her own style - best of all, she’s already starting from a place of proficiency, so there’s very little of the waffling that often comes with stories about artists in training.

The chances of this story being adapted as an English-language dub are slim, given the setting, but as it’s also a pretty popular series among Shonen Jump readers, hopefully we’ll get an anime someday. “Akane-Banashi” practically jumps off the page already, so I can only imagine how incredible the story could be in the hands of some talented character actors.

Performance of the Week

I just finished catching up with “The 100 Girlfriends who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You” because I have this theory that it’s going to be the new “One Piece” for voice actresses, and I found myself vibing with it a lot more than I thought I would. The saving grace of the show is how ENTHUSIASTIC everyone is about the absolutely bonkers premise, and nobody is quite as enthusiastic as our protagonist Rentarou played by Travis Mullenix.

Travis does the unthinkable — he made me genuinely enjoy watching the protagonist of a harem anime. Rentarou distinguishes himself from the average doof by going above and beyond to not just be a good boyfriend, but to be the BEST boyfriend for each girl he’s dating (and remember, there will be 100 of them). As Rentarou’s “family” continues to expand, Travis brings delightful specificity to each interaction — as he lists his girlfriends’ unique quirks and tics, you feel his level of attention and love and can’t help but marvel at the kid’s sincerity. I have it on good authority that this story gets even goofier once the number of girlfriends hits double-digits, and I am pumped beyond belief to see how.

When You’re a Professional Pirate

All joking aside, I’ve always had a tough time adequately prioritizing everything in my life. An old therapist of mine, who was very sweet but in no way prepared to give advice to an artist, urged me to simplify my life. Surely I would be happier without all the uncertainty and frustration that comes with pursuing a career as an actor, with purposely taking on unchallenging part-time jobs to make ends meet, with facing constant rejection.

The thing is, that life sounds really boring?

I’ve been thinking a lot about turning points. Those moments in time when one decision could have drastically changed the course of your life. Some of those potential futures are entirely fanciful (what if I’d gone to culinary school and moved to Paris?) and some are more rooted in reality lead to muddier results (I could have gone to College of Santa Fe instead of NYU and…just stayed in Santa Fe?). In all of those potential futures though, I’m writing and performing in some capacity. I’m unable to stop — I legitimately tried to in 2016 and all it got me was a huge case of FOMO and a notebook full of ideas.

The older I get the more I take being an artist for granted — I will always be an artist, even if the worst should happen. I won’t always be a good friend, or a lover, or a provider, or a positive force in my community. So the challenge changes: if I will always be an artist, what can I do to become more?

As of last week, I’m 35. So let’s see if I can’t figure that out.