Acting Out :: Staff

Youth Initatives Office Assistant Director/ActingOut Program Coordinator

Jodi holds a BA in both Anthropology and Theatre from Marlboro College and a MA in Theatre Education from Emerson College. She has been the program coordinator of ActingOut since February 2006 and has worked with middle, high school and college students. She has received training in Playback Theatre, Adolescent Development, Substance Abuse Prevention, Suicide Prevention, and Diversity and Communication Issues. She also teaches and directs with MoCo Arts Creative Arts at Keene Multi-arts summer camp program. Jodi has learned so much from working with the staff and cast of ActingOut and feels her time with the program has made her a stronger teacher and performer. Her favorite memories include the creation of the “Improvers! What is your profession?” cheer, and the multiple school performances the ensemble has done where everything magically flowed. She has worked with youth in theatre in a variety of settings including play productions for schools and drama classes for groups including the New England Youth Theatre in Brattleboro, VT. She is also a member of the American Alliance for Theatre in Education. Jodi has also performed and directed with several Renaissance faires throughout New England.

AmeriCorps Member Program Assistant

Eric has been involved with ActingOut since 2000, and has been active in nearly every role the program has to offer, from regular member to volunteer group leader. He has been the coordinator of the Keene State College-based ActingOut troupe, The Seasoned Players, since 2006, and recently became a fulltime staff member, serving as an Americorps volunteer through PlusTime NH. Eric holds a B.A. in Improvisational Arts, and is beyond thrilled to be giving back to a program he grew up with, and which is near and dear to his heart.

Eric is grateful for all manner of things that ActingOut has brought into his life: a vocation, a passion for teaching, a great deal of fun, numerous friendships, leadership skills, and mentors form a decidedly partial list. He values most highly the ongoing opportunities to connect with people about things that are important to them, to help communities to have meaningful conversations, and to support and be supported by all the people he works with. Favorite memories include the ridiculous amazingness that is the 24-hour Improvathon, “Zen” moments when an exercise grooves, time falls away, and everything clicks, and that time with the glass of water.

When he is away from ActingOut, Eric also teaches improv theatre at MoCo Arts, writes, acts in plays, and makes all manner of things, from jewelry to set pieces to furniture.

Ian Whippie sprung fully grown, from the head of Zeus...

Actually, I was born in Philipsburg, NJ on March 5, 1993. I joined Acting Out because at the time my older brother was a member, and highly recommended it. I stayed on after he left, becoming an even more active member of the group. One of the best things about Acting Out is that the people are always ready to accept new members and treat them like old friends. There was a very short period of adjustment when I joined, to get to know everyone. It was fun, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I will now switch to the third person for the rest of my bio. Ian enjoys writing fiction, British accents, and shiny objects.

My English teacher told me to join acting out at the beginning of freshman year. At some point in the spring I actually joined cuz there was an advertisement on the school radio for it, and I really was getting bored in art club. It was purely awesome. I couldn't not go, it was way too much fun. In May, I met some of the other improvers from Keene like Bryan, Eddie, and Sarah, at the Children and the Arts Festival performance. I don't play and instrument, nor can I juggle, but I'm pretty good with computers. I write some too. ActingOut has been one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life. There’s my epic bio.

Why did you join ActingOut?

I joined because I thought my friend was going to a cult every Tuesday night and Friday after school so I figured why not check it out and see what it ACTUALLY was. After a couple weeks of going I realized this was the place for me. I've been going since for about a year now and ActingOut has helped make my high school experience awesome thus far.

Talk about a significant experience you have had while with ActingOut.

We had a performance at Compass School in Vermont and I feel as if that was our best performance so far. The audience was a good size group and they were close to us while performing so it felt as if they were part of it, and in fact at one point we had a boy come up and try to play a character in a scene and it was just hysterical. Also, during the show I remember my character and another character had a real intense moment where we were best friends and she was moving away and we both started crying while we were hugging and I remember just this feeling of really connecting with the characters that we were portraying and how they'd react in the scene and it was just awesome.

My Name is Sammy(Saxmei) Milano. I am an Eleventh Grader, and I go to Keene High School. The first time I ever went to ActingOut was a Friday in the February of my Freshmen Year. I was staying after school, waiting for my dad to come pick me up, and walking around with a friend of mine. We passed the LGIA room, and suddenly, the door burst open, and an acquaintance from one of my classes jumped out, grabbed mine and my friend’s wrists, and said, "I’m kidnapping you!" The next thing I knew, I was standing in a large room outside a decent-sized circle of people, none of whom I knew, all of whom were looking at me. Needless to say, it was one of the creepier things I’d ever experienced. I wanted to bolt and run, even more so when the adult in the room stood up and approached me. She was much bigger than I, and I didn’t know her. But none of those things seemed to matter: she walked right up to me and said, "Hi. I’m Jodi Clark, and this is ActingOut."

That was the first memory I have of ActingOut. By that point, I had been acting for six years, and had been in all sorts of Drama clubs and Gifted And Talented programs for it. I had just moved to Keene before my freshman year, and I am originally from New Jersey. I hadn’t gotten involved with the drama Club at KHS, because it seemed too clique-ish to me, and I didn’t want to deal with that. That Friday, February 15, 2008, I stayed for the whole ActingOut session. I stayed because for the first time in six years, I had gone five months with no sort of acting whatsoever, and I enjoyed the feeling again, even if it was improv, something I’d previously had little experience with. I soon came to be a very active member, and continue to be to this day. My favorite warm-up game is "What are you doing?", my favorite game is "All happy families," and I love doing our character work. I have experienced a lot of changes since joining ActingOut, one of which has been more of a tolerance for people, because I now find it easier to understand them. It was a member of ActingOut, too, that provided me with the idea for the preferred alternative spelling of my name. Outside of ActingOut, I have written a novel, a mini-novel, and tons of poetry. I still spend a lot of time visiting New Jersey, and much of my free time is spent with my family. I am a born-again Christian who is semi-fluent in Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, extremely fluent in German and English, and I am currently learning Romanian. I am known for my boldly "unique" sense of style, and my exceptionally unhealthy obsession with Tokio Hotel.

Hailing from Antrim, NH, I joined Acting Out in 2005 as part of the Peterborough group, then named Pitch White. I was looking for a place to hone my Improv skills and have a good time, and this was accomplished. During my second year in the group, we formed the Youth Advisory Board. It was epic, and one of my proudest moments was helping form the idea of the 24-Hour Improvathon, which still goes strong every year. The group has changed faces a lot over the years, but it is still as awesome as ever. I am now a part of Keene State's Seasoned Players. I am a Communications Major and Theatre Minor at KSC, and enjoy many a thing, primarily stage acting and baseball.

When I joined ActingOut I was much shyer than I am now. But since I have joined I feel freer and I feel like I can just be who I am, and I can! The moment I knew when I had been changed by this group was when I was coming down from the empire state building in a very cramped elevator and no one was talking. So I said, "Hi, my name is Gabe!" I knew then that I was a free spirit and that ActingOut had changed me in a happy way!

I've been going to ActingOut for the better part of 4 years now. I joined ActingOut when a couple of close friends of mine kept bugging me to come to one of the Friday meetings. Finally I relented. And I was surprised at the insanity that ensued from that first meeting. I was always a really shy person, not talking to a lot of people. But ActingOut helped me come out of my shell alot and finally be the person who I am today. Now enough of that uplifting mumbo jumbo. How about some stuff about the person? The Name's Elliott, Justin Elliott. I assure you, there's no relation to James Bond. I'm a poet and writer at heart. It’s what I am. I can always be found with a pencil and paper in hand, and an Idea on my mind. Many of the epic ActingOut meetings have inspired some rather...odd Prose pieces. But, although the ActingOut-ers are an odd, uncanny, insane bunch, they're amazing. I don't call them improvers, or friends, or anything like that. There's just one name for them. Family.

I joined ActingOut because I knew many people involved that told me it was amazing. During my sophomore year, I would go occasionally to the Friday meetings as a professional audience member. This school year though, I decided it would be good for me (along with bucket-loads of fun) to be dubbed an official Improver. Since I knew a lot of people involved in ActingOut, it was easy to adjust, but I do recall being LIFTED and PLACED in different games by Isaac Lezcano and/or Jaimes Friedman on several occassions. I play piano, although my piano teacher moved so I just play for fun now. I'm an expert at being lazy and eating Domino's. I am a member of the religion Hoboism: A group of people who worship hobos. Also, I am mother to a traffic cone named Carlos. He has attended a few of the Tuesday ActingOut meetings and I think he should become the new mascot. Enough about me, let's discuss the concept of toast...

YAY.

Service through Story

Jodi Clark, ActingOut Coordinator • Phone: 355-3040, ext. 107 • E-mail: actingout@mfs.org