About

“Although Oklahoma is my birthplace, I grew up a Midwest boy in Ohio and Michigan.  This was where the theater bug bit me.  If it wasn’t for my first grade Christmas Pageant where I played The Mouse That Saved Christmas or my curiosity in PBS and the Arts and Entertainment Channel, I doubt I would have known how to focus all of my creative excess energy.  In grade school I attended weekend theatre classes at the Beck Center for the Performing Arts and was cast in their one-act festival that eventually toured Ohio.  And so my life changed.

 

Though I don’t know if the appropriate word is obsessed, I did begin to surround myself with all things theatrical.  I lead a mime group with my elementary school friends, and constructed my very own miniature stage with hand built sets, paper dolls, and historically period costumes. By the time I got into the University of Michigan I actually thought I could put theatre behind me.  I tried to pursue “anything other than theatre” for a year.  But thanks to my curiosity, a year is all I lasted before I found myself in the Musical Theatre Department.

 

My experience as a New York based performer on Broadway and National Tours provided me the opportunity to work for and alongside many artists I had only previously admired.  It was in these rehearsal rooms and theaters where I feel my graduate lessons on collaboration and live art making took place.  

 

I’ve always known that I come most alive when I can help lead the creative process of birthing a live experience with others.  And I am so grateful to now be in a place in my career where I can finally fully focus on that pursuit.”

                                                                                 -Eric Jackson

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