01Film · Directed by Spike Lee
She Hate Me
Jeb Stuart MagruderA feature-film performance within Lee’s politically charged ensemble satire.
04 / Acting
Enter completely.
Remain available.
Let the room change you.
I approach acting as an exacting practice of attention: to language, impulse, circumstance, rhythm, the other actor, and the event unfolding between performer and audience.
Across theatre, film, television, and solo performance, I am drawn to work that asks for both formal precision and genuine instability—the disciplined preparation that permits something unrepeatable to occur.
01 / THE PRACTICESpecific choices.
Specific choices.
Radical presence.
A performance becomes alive when technique disappears into attention—when the actor is prepared enough to stop demonstrating and begin responding.
My practice draws upon text analysis, Stanislavski-based approaches, physical theatre, Viewpoints, Linklater voice work, Shakespeare, clowning, and movement. These traditions are not a collection of effects; they are different ways of making the actor more available.
Whether the frame is a camera, a proscenium, a public space, or an intimate solo encounter, the central task remains the same: inhabit the circumstances fully while preserving the freedom to be surprised.
Prepare the instrument.
Then listen for what was not planned.
Selected professional credits
Screen presence.
Stage scale.
Eight lives in one body.
02The Public Theater · New York
El Silencio Grande
El Silencio GrandeA performance in Suzan-Lori Parks’s 365 National Festival with The Faux-Real Theatre Company.
03National tour
Driving Miss Daisy
BoolieA national touring performance of Alfred Uhry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play with Mixed Company Productions.
04Television · NBC
Law & Order Universe
Court Clerk · Czech Police Officer · DetectiveCredits across Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
05Film · Directed by Bill Condon
Kinsey
Love-Sick ScientistA performance in the Academy Award-nominated biographical drama about sex researcher Alfred Kinsey.
06National tour · London · U.S. festivals
Queer in the U.S.A.
Eight charactersA solo performance of Manuel’s original play, touring nationally and appearing at London’s Camden International Fringe Festival.
Across the repertoire
Classical text.
New work.
Stages without walls.
Member: Actors’ Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA
- 01Life Saving Box
Lifeguard · Lincoln Center / HERE Arts Center co-production
- 02Oedipus Rex
Chorus Leader · La MaMa
- 03Twelfth Night
Malvolio · La MaMa
- 04A Soldier’s Play
Lieutenant Byrd · Bucks County Playhouse
- 05Molière’s Don Juan
Don Juan · International Theatre Festival, Amsterdam
- 06Shakespeare’s Haunted House
Hamlet · Richard III · Caliban · Three seasons in Central Park
The instrument
Thought in the body.
Emotion in action.
Technique in service of encounter.
Text
Language, action, structure, and subtext become playable rather than merely understood.
Body
Movement, rhythm, spatial awareness, and physical transformation extend the actor’s imaginative range.
Partner
Listening makes performance relational: an exchange in which choices remain responsive and consequential.
Areas of collaboration
Ways we might
enter the work.
- 01Stage, film, television, and digital performance
- 02New plays and developmental readings
- 03Solo and autobiographical performance
- 04Classical and heightened-language work
- 05Queer and ensemble-generated theatre
- 06Character, physical, and movement-based performance
- 07On-camera and audition coaching
- 08Talkbacks, panels, and public-facing performance
The actor does not merely enter the story.
The actor makes the story present.