andrewsellon.com » Sara Lampert Hoover

I’ve Been Cast in the First New York Revival of Richard Greenberg’s “The Violet Hour”!

Andrew Sellon — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:52:40 +0000

I’m very excited. This has been a very good week. I landed a neat role in a short animated film, and now I’ve been cast in the plum role of Gidger in the first New York revival of Richard Greenberg’s fascinating play, The Violet Hour! It’s being produced by the Active Theater here in NYC this March. I play a publisher’s assistant, an extremely well-educated man who is having a midlife crisis of epic proportions. He is emotionally on the edge, terrified he will live and die without making his mark on the world. Gidger is outspoken, sometimes shockingly so, and also extremely funny. He’s one of those people who holds nothing back, and has an impressive vocabulary with which to express his intense emotions. The play is slightly fantastical, and full of surprises–including a printing machine that outputs potentially life-changing information!

I had a great time at the auditions held by casting director Cindi Rush and Artistic Director/Director Nathaniel Shaw. My thanks to them both for creating such a great audition atmosphere, and for inviting me to audition in the first place. And of course my thanks to my agent, Reneé Glicker at About Artists, for submitting me. I learned after the auditions that Nathaniel has an impressive resumé, including three years as a featured dancer with the magnificent Paul Taylor Dance Company. PTDC happens to be my favorite dance company in the world, so I took this as a great bit of serendipity. I know how hard the PTDC dancers work, and the remarkable quality of their performances. One of the best directors I’ve worked with to date, Sara Lampert Hoover, was also a modern dancer. Nathaniel was gracious, insightful, and a lot of fun at the auditions, so I can’t wait to start rehearsals on February 13th!

The Active Theater’s production of The Violet Hour will play March 9-25 in NYC. I will post more information as soon as I have it. You can also click the logo on this post to visit their web site and see a full calendar of performance dates. If you’re going to be in NYC, I hope you’ll come to one of our performances and say hello afterwards. This is a very funny and thought-provoking play that deserves a big audience. And in fact, the March 9th performance is already sold out! Stay tuned for more information.

Vermont Stage Bids Fond Farewell to Artistic Director Mark Nash

Andrew Sellon — Tue, 17 May 2011 02:37:41 +0000

After a decade of serving the Burlington community with an endlessly varied and ambitious array of theatrical productions, Artistic Director Mark Nash has decided it’s time for him to move on and try something new. Mark has hired me for a number of productions over the last decade, so when he called to invite me back up to Vermont to participate in a one-night-only farewell gala performance in June, Tim and I rearranged a vacation to make sure we can be there. I first worked with Mark when he asked me to participate in Vermont Young Playwrights Festival (his predecessor, Blake Robison, invited me for my first festival, then Mark hired me for 10 more, making a total of 11 consecutive and wonderful years with that great program). In 2002, right after 9/11, Mark hired me to play Vladimir in what turned out to be a fantastic (and sold out) production of Waiting for Godot. Three years later, he invited me back to play Charlie in The Foreigner, which he directed, and which remains one of VSC’s biggest hits. Over the next couple of years, he asked me to participate in two seasons of their holiday offering Winter Tales, which he also directed. Then in 2007 he hired me for I Am My Own Wife, directed by the wonderful Sara Lampert Hoover, and later that year asked me back to play Wayne in the production of Inspecting Carol that he was directing. Most recently, he brought me back to play the Fool in King Lear, VSC’s first full-scale Shakespeare production, and he did a fantastic job yet again directing that challenging show. So a good part of my career over the last decade has taken place in Burlington, Vermont, and I’ve grown an enormous amount as an actor in an environment that always felt welcoming and full of positive creative energy. Mark Nash is the man who made it all possible.

I’m sorry to hear that Mark is leaving VSC, but I’m sure wherever he lands, whether it’s in the theatre or another line of work altogether, he will do creative and wonderful things. I count myself a very lucky person, and an extremely lucky actor, that Mark Nash came into my life. And I’m deeply honored that VSC is bringing me up to Burlington to help pay tribute to him. Hail, and Farewell, old friend! I will have more to say about Mark’s work at VSC in another blog post after the June performance.

March 2007

Andrew Sellon — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:21:58 +0000

THE REVIEWS ARE IN! I starred in Vermont Stage Company’s production of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning drama, I Am My Own Wife.

This one-man tour-de-force was my biggest challenge yet, and I was thrilled to perform this great play to such a fantastic response. The production was beautifully directed by Sara Lampert Hoover, and we are eager to present it at other Equity theatres. For reviews, pictures and interviews, please click here.