After two months of rehearsal and another month of performances, I just closed a production of "West Side Story" at the Ritz Theatre Company in Collingswood, New Jersey! I was Action, one of the Jets, and it was such a joy getting to play him. The part was like a full course meal: I got some really cool scenes, a fantastic song, and got to work with some totally awesome people! I also got whipped into shape and somehow became a dancer...? I never thought that'd happen in a mi

Congratulations! You're now reading the first words I, Connor Shields, college graduate has written. The former college student known as Connor Shields has vanished and won't ever be seen again (that's a lie lol). The past few months have seen like a roller coaster. I've been incredibly fortunate to have such a wonderful experience and have actually been recognized by my school in a few ways! The first of which being the subject of the Rowan University College of the Performi

Today has been an absolutely hectic day! It was senior showcase day for the Advanced Acting class and we made it a two parter: we started off with an in-class showcase we so that way we could have it recorded by the Rowan Television Network. Later in the day we all made our way to the Asian Arts Initiative in Philadelphia and put on our work for about a dozen different casting directors local to the Philadelphia area. I did two monologues and a song: "The Fog" by Eugene O'Nei

I just finished up another Theatre School semester of teaching! This time I was able to teach three classes: 101: Kids Acting for Ages 5-7, 102A: Kids Musical Theatre for Ages 5-7, and 102B: Kids Musical Theatre for Ages 5-7 with the incredible Lindsay Marcus! We had a number of repeat students as well as some new ones, so we did a mix of acting and musical theatre techniques revisitng some old topics while diving into a lot of new ideas for the classes. During the showcase w

Today was closing for Monster: A Frankenstein Play by John Clancy. While I won't go too in-depth about the show's content since ~spoilers~ I would like to say this was an absolute blast of a show! The cast and crew were superb and getting to essentially cause controlled chaos for 90 minutes was wonderful. I think my favorite reaction to the show was "I imagine this is what an acid trip is like." I played the role of Tres and that journey was an interesting one to say the lea