The son of two moms and a proud native of Lombard, Illinois, I left the small town life to study Slavic Languages & Literature and Theater at Princeton. It was there that I began fusing my passion for scholarship with my love of the performing arts.

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      After Princeton, I headed to Glasgow, where I received my M.A. in Acting from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. While there, I performed in brand new works by Scottish playwrights and completed a residency at the legendary Shakespeare's Globe.

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In 2016, I moved to NYC, where I have put up my award-winning one-man-show MADMAN Off-Broadway, performed as Hamlet in Central Park, and wore a million professional hats as a research assistant, Russian Language teacher and translator.

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In 2019, I served as TA for Princeton's Global Seminar in Moscow, and in 2021 I began a PhD program at Oxford University, where I am writing my thesis "Stages of Captivity: Professional Theater in the Gulag Capitals of Vorkuta & Magadan" under the supervision of Profs. Polly Jones and Dan Healey. 

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As I wrap up my PhD, I look forward to the next stage of my life, as I once again endeavor to combine the rigor and intellectual curiosity of academic research with the human-centered, creative work of theatermaking. In October, I will begin my work as a Teaching Fellow in Russian History at the University of Warwick, all the while working on a brand new play with music about the life and music of the repressed queer Soviet cabaret star Vadim Kozin.