Where do you see yourself?
I was asked to write a piece to encourage the high school students at Santa Clara High which I graduated from in 1992.
Here's what I wrote.
School is more than just a place you are required by law to be. Sure the main purpose of going to school is to get an education that will make you a more capable human being and lead to a career that will feed you and possibly those you attach yourself to or create later in life. But high school is also a place where a lot of your likes and dislikes are cemented in your personality and you learn social lessons that educate you, culturally, for the rest of your life.
I was asked to write something for you because I am one of many graduates from Santa Clara High School who went on to experience success after graduating.
The truth is that every inch of success I achieved in life began at Santa Clara High.
I have toured North America with Cirque du Soleil performing for millions of people. I have entertained audiences throughout the entire Caribbean on massive cruise ships the size of Vallco Shopping Mall. I co-starred with Whoopi Goldberg, Dame Maggie Smith, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Lauren Hill in the Disney family film, “Sister Act 2”.
My first year at SC was in 1989. I was fifteen years old. I had been performing magic tricks and dressing up as different characters for friends and family. In my first year of high school I auditioned for the play “The Diary of Anne Frank” and was cast as "Peter". This was one of my first times performing in a theater and I loved it! I soon was enrolled in band playing the saxophone and singing in choir. If there were a performing art at Santa Clara High School, I wanted to be in it. Classrooms were just “stages” to me for captive audiences. By my sophomore year, I was firing on all cylinders and was doing every play and taking every opportunity to perform. I can remember, even now, high school assemblies and performers that came to the school who made a huge impression on me. “Mr. Enunciation”, taught proper and clear pronunciation of words which inspired my enjoyment of English class. Reading and writing was enjoyable to me and later helped me understand movie scripts and write lyrics for an off-Broadway musical production of “Titus Andronicus” from Shakespeare. A hysterical mime/comedian came to the school and interested me even more in physical comedy. The class trip to see the musical, “Les Miserables” at the San Jose Civic Light Opera inspired me to write a full parody of every song in the show and perform it in my classroom “theaters”. This gave me experience putting together rhyming verse and poetry which culminated in later producing my own hip hop albums and collaborating with a Cirque du Soleil composer to create one of the musical pieces in the creation of the show,”KOOZA”.
These examples are just a few of the memories that were given to me by Santa Clara High that influenced me in my decisions years later. The more I performed at school the more I wanted to perform outside of school in “the real world”.
I auditioned for California’s Great America theme park and became a costume character walking around the park and performing on stage in the show. The following year I took my experience doing school talent shows and shaped it with the help of a Bay Area magician, and got hired to do my own shows wherever I chose to street perform in the park. I was only seventeen years old and my time onstage at school and at the amusement park was piling up shaping into the beginning of a career in show business. School plays pushed me to do murder mystery dinner theater for the “Mystery Café” working with adult professional actors. And one school play, “Scared Scriptless” mated me with my life long love of improvisational comedy. The Comedy Sportz organization formed a high school league and I was able to excel until I became captain of our school improv team working with a great team of classmate improvisers. Improv has led me to Cirque du Soleil, to writing a book, to doing humor therapy workshops and to story and character design, working with Pendulum Aerial Arts in association with The Portland Art Museum.
Drama class moved me to be an extra in films such as, “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “So I Married an Axe Murderer” with Robin Williams and Mike Meyers. I did these films in my senior year. I got experience working on a movie set and becoming comfortable around stars and heavy motion picture equipment. A year later I was co-starring in the hit film, “Sister Act 2” living in Hollywood singing ( a’la choir) and dancing (a’la Great America) with a soon to be Grammy Award winning R&B star. Every one of my choices led me to the next level of the dream I saw laid out before me.
The point of all of this is that everything you are doing or NOT doing while attending Santa Clara High School is shaping the potential of your future. Opportunities are here for you now and if you are brave enough to grab them they can shape where you are in the future. But who am I to tell YOU what to do? Who the heck am I?
I’m an actor, a comedian, a writer, and a musician. I’m a magician, a juggler, a clown, and a motivational speaker.
Who the heck am I?
I am Santa Clara High School Alumni and I represent YOU and the possibilities you can extract from life. So go out and write your own story and be a part of a great lineage that is as diverse as Olympic champions, professional sports stars, graphic artists, and entertainers.
Here's what I wrote.
School is more than just a place you are required by law to be. Sure the main purpose of going to school is to get an education that will make you a more capable human being and lead to a career that will feed you and possibly those you attach yourself to or create later in life. But high school is also a place where a lot of your likes and dislikes are cemented in your personality and you learn social lessons that educate you, culturally, for the rest of your life.
I was asked to write something for you because I am one of many graduates from Santa Clara High School who went on to experience success after graduating.
The truth is that every inch of success I achieved in life began at Santa Clara High.
I have toured North America with Cirque du Soleil performing for millions of people. I have entertained audiences throughout the entire Caribbean on massive cruise ships the size of Vallco Shopping Mall. I co-starred with Whoopi Goldberg, Dame Maggie Smith, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Lauren Hill in the Disney family film, “Sister Act 2”.
My first year at SC was in 1989. I was fifteen years old. I had been performing magic tricks and dressing up as different characters for friends and family. In my first year of high school I auditioned for the play “The Diary of Anne Frank” and was cast as "Peter". This was one of my first times performing in a theater and I loved it! I soon was enrolled in band playing the saxophone and singing in choir. If there were a performing art at Santa Clara High School, I wanted to be in it. Classrooms were just “stages” to me for captive audiences. By my sophomore year, I was firing on all cylinders and was doing every play and taking every opportunity to perform. I can remember, even now, high school assemblies and performers that came to the school who made a huge impression on me. “Mr. Enunciation”, taught proper and clear pronunciation of words which inspired my enjoyment of English class. Reading and writing was enjoyable to me and later helped me understand movie scripts and write lyrics for an off-Broadway musical production of “Titus Andronicus” from Shakespeare. A hysterical mime/comedian came to the school and interested me even more in physical comedy. The class trip to see the musical, “Les Miserables” at the San Jose Civic Light Opera inspired me to write a full parody of every song in the show and perform it in my classroom “theaters”. This gave me experience putting together rhyming verse and poetry which culminated in later producing my own hip hop albums and collaborating with a Cirque du Soleil composer to create one of the musical pieces in the creation of the show,”KOOZA”.
These examples are just a few of the memories that were given to me by Santa Clara High that influenced me in my decisions years later. The more I performed at school the more I wanted to perform outside of school in “the real world”.
I auditioned for California’s Great America theme park and became a costume character walking around the park and performing on stage in the show. The following year I took my experience doing school talent shows and shaped it with the help of a Bay Area magician, and got hired to do my own shows wherever I chose to street perform in the park. I was only seventeen years old and my time onstage at school and at the amusement park was piling up shaping into the beginning of a career in show business. School plays pushed me to do murder mystery dinner theater for the “Mystery Café” working with adult professional actors. And one school play, “Scared Scriptless” mated me with my life long love of improvisational comedy. The Comedy Sportz organization formed a high school league and I was able to excel until I became captain of our school improv team working with a great team of classmate improvisers. Improv has led me to Cirque du Soleil, to writing a book, to doing humor therapy workshops and to story and character design, working with Pendulum Aerial Arts in association with The Portland Art Museum.
Drama class moved me to be an extra in films such as, “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “So I Married an Axe Murderer” with Robin Williams and Mike Meyers. I did these films in my senior year. I got experience working on a movie set and becoming comfortable around stars and heavy motion picture equipment. A year later I was co-starring in the hit film, “Sister Act 2” living in Hollywood singing ( a’la choir) and dancing (a’la Great America) with a soon to be Grammy Award winning R&B star. Every one of my choices led me to the next level of the dream I saw laid out before me.
The point of all of this is that everything you are doing or NOT doing while attending Santa Clara High School is shaping the potential of your future. Opportunities are here for you now and if you are brave enough to grab them they can shape where you are in the future. But who am I to tell YOU what to do? Who the heck am I?
I’m an actor, a comedian, a writer, and a musician. I’m a magician, a juggler, a clown, and a motivational speaker.
Who the heck am I?
I am Santa Clara High School Alumni and I represent YOU and the possibilities you can extract from life. So go out and write your own story and be a part of a great lineage that is as diverse as Olympic champions, professional sports stars, graphic artists, and entertainers.
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