A little about me.

On August 11, 2008, I walked down stairs to find my entire family in my living room. Even as a nine-year-old, I knew the looks on their faces meant that my life had changed forever. They were there to deliver the news that my father, Kim Anthony Russell, had passed away the night before. To this day, I grieve for that younger version of myself. I was too young to understand the milestones that we would miss, the wisdom he could have shared, and the memories that he aspired to make with my mother and me. While this memory still causes pain and the absence of my father is still felt to this day, it is the reason why I am pursuing acting. As my life has progressed I have found that this blank space could be filled by community and collaboration. 

I owe so much to the theatrical communities that I have been a part of because they have helped me remember Dad through the values that they shared: Compassion, respect, and diligence. Those core traits have not only built me into the person that I am, they have driven me to falling hopelessly in love with the craft of acting. There is no way to understand a character, their circumstances, and what they want, without those three things. It gives me great comfort to know that the basic things that have been asked of me by collaborators are the same things my father asked of me. And that makes me trust that I can always find a family in any group of theatre makers that I happen to find myself around. They get to know you in your most vulnerable, uncomfortable states, where holding up these principals might be one of the most difficult things you have ever accomplished. They also share the triumph when you achieve what seems impossible. These communities have shown me that through collaboration, there is joy within grief. In many ways, these community members have given me the relationship that I longed for with my father as an adult. While I watched my mother achieve superhuman feats of raising me on her own, the theatre was the second parent I needed to raise me into a joyful member of society. 

As I have grown older, I have strangely started to miss my father more instead of less. I hear countless stories about how selfless he was. He always offered a hand to those in need, always randomly gave his friends gifts, and was always the first to apologize if he believed he did something that was out of his morals. These are the attributes that I hope to hone in my artistry. The theatre is a space that allows me to be more than my grief. This crucible of process, year after year in the rehearsal room, showed me that the light at the end of the tunnel is joy and that is where our true self lies. And as the years have passed in my acting experience, this has opened up a drive to become a collaborator that is selfless, specific, and curious about the limitless possibilities that a character can be. While this is daunting, grief has taught me that joy is in the journey of self-discovery. Because while people may leave us, we can still surprise ourselves with their gifts of wisdom that they have left within us.