During my tenure at the University of Washington’s Professional Actor Training Program, which is a bit like Special Forces Training but for actors, we wrote, produced and acted in our own one-person shows. Mainly, the idea was to promote self-producing as not many acting jobs are ever given away, so instead of sitting around waiting for the phone to ring, we were encouraged to create our own work. “Work begets work” the saying goes… though this process was more along the lines of throwing the chicks out of the nest, as it were, teaching us, in effect, how to fly on our own.

Or crash to the ground, where we would surely die. Luckily, no one died. Many suffered, but no one died.

That I know of.

Anyway. Here are my two shows:

This is from my second year, which would be my first of the solo shows. It’s called “Where Do You Go?” and it’s about a boy in a room with a chest of really cool stuff:

Click here for “Where Do You Go?” on Youtube .

(Then answer this question: what does it mean to you? And where do you go?)

The second is from my third year; it’s called “Menu” . This is a much more portable show and I performed it both in Seattle and New York off, off Broadway at the Where Eagles Dare Theatre. It’s about dating. And I would like to thank the hooker, who before I knew she was a hooker, asked me in my cab one night “You wanna date? I’ll date you right now. Ten dollars.” This piqued my curiosity as to what a ‘date’ means and what does it mean to ‘date someone’. Thereafter, the word always rings funny in my ears. So I wrote a show about it.

(I didn’t “date” her by the way.)

Click here for “Menu” (filmed before a live studio audience) .

Please enjoy and let me know if you watch them.

Cheers
Shawn

Thanks to Don Pham, that theatre geek and technological god that make this possbible.