West Valley City, Utah
as Radames
Aida was a show I had wanted to do since it came out my junior year of high school. The rock-opera style of singing was well outside my comfort zone, so getting cast as Radames was both thrilling and genuinely intimidating.
13 photos
North America
as Radames
Shortly after closing at Hale, I ran into a friend from that cast who told me the national tour was holding auditions in Los Angeles that weekend. She didn't know how I might get seen, so that night I looked up the production company and found the casting director's email address. I sent him a clip from the show I had just closed, not really expecting a reply.
He wrote back the same day. If I could be in LA by 10am on Saturday, they would see me. It was Friday.
That evening my wife, our eight-month-old son, my mother-in-law and I loaded into her van and drove through the night. We pulled into the parking lot at 9:30am. I walked in, sang “Fortune Favors the Brave,” and was asked to wait outside. Two hours later they called me back in for two more songs and a few scenes. They thanked me, I left, and we drove home.
Two weeks later I got the call with an offer to play Radames on the national tour. I couldn't believe it. But the most remarkable part was that my wife was on board — to travel with me and our son, live in hotel rooms for a year, and go on the adventure together. And an adventure it was.
41 photos
People's Republic of China
as Radames
Getting the call to tour Aida in China was not something I expected. I had just been awarded a full scholarship to the business program at Weber State University, and I wasn't sure what to do. It was a rare opportunity, but it meant three and a half months in a completely foreign place, away from my family, and forgoing the scholarship I had just received.
As fate would have it, I happened to attend a dinner where the benefactor of that scholarship was seated at my table. I told him about the offer and why I was torn. He told me I would be crazy to pass on an opportunity like that — and that he would hold the scholarship until I got back.
I went. My wife visited three different times. It was an incredible experience.
97 photos
Taiwan
as Radames
A short one-month run in Taiwan. An unexpected chapter, and fascinating to see the ways China and Taiwan were different from one another, and the ways they were much the same.
68 photos
Sandy, Utah
as Radames
Just over ten years after my first production of Aida at Hale, I was able to do it again — this time as the inaugural show opening the new theatre in Sandy, Utah. More than 600,000 people come through its doors each year.
I also got to reprise the role opposite Kandyce Marie, who had played Aida in that first production a decade earlier.
57 photos