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Theatre Portfolios - Acting Emphasis

Click on the individual below to view their portfolio:


Janel L. Crane

Graduated 2002, Acting

After graduating, Janel moved back to Southern CA. After doing some extra work for television, she became a Claims Adjuster in Workers Compensation for the State of CA. She performed in a local production of Annie last summer, as Grace. She keeps up her singing and has taken up Danse Orientale as a hobby. She still hopes to incorporate the arts, travel, and earning a decent living all in one, but meanwhile, will do them separately.

Posted: July 2005


Edward Sharon

Graduated 1995, Acting

Edward “Ted” Sharon holds an M.F.A. in voice and movement from Boston University College for the Arts and has served on the voice staff at the American Repertory Theatre and Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University. He is a Certified Teacher with the Society of American Fight Directors and a Senior Instructor with Dueling Arts International.

Ted works professionally and teaches at the State University of New York-Fredonia.

Posted: January 2006

David Shipp

Graduated 1995, Acting

Starting in January of 1993, David was in the original cast of the Garrens. He had my own sketch/improv group in Los Angeles for three years called “Hauska,” which performed regularly at the Comedy Store in Hollywood. He studied for a year at The Groundlings and with David Kagen. After moving back to Utah in 1998, he joined up with the Garren’s Salt Lake cast which after a few years was renamed “The Skinny Lincolns” and then merged with “Comedy Sportz.” He was on the official Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympic comedy team:  “The ODDlympians.” Over the last year he has worked on a few “Fun Ships” for Carnival Cruise Lines as a Karaoke Host. Ever since his first days performing with the Garrens he has been in lots of plays and a few movies and TV shows along the way.  Some of the movies he starred in are Six-string Samurai, Con Express, Back Yard Wrestlers to name a few and most recent of which is The Book of Mormon Movie, Volume One – The Journey.

Posted: July 2005

Eve Speer

Graduated 2002, Acting

Eve is currently studying Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature in Performance at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia. See resume and headshot below.

Posted: July 2005

Emmelyn Thayer

Graduated in 2000, BA (Acting Emphasis)

After graduating from BYU, Emmelyn moved to Manhattan, and lived in Harlem for a year before she was accepted to the Old Globe/University of San Diego's MFA program. She spent an amazing two years in San Diego earning her MFA in Acting, and also met her husband there.  She and Steven Freitas were married in August of 2003, and have been living in Orange County ever since. Since graduate school, Emmelyn has taught acting at Orange County High School of the Arts, played Mary Fielding in the film Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration, acted in stage plays,
played in a string quartet, and learned to like palm trees.

Posted November 2006

Jjana Valentiner

Jjana graduated from the MFA program in Classical Acting with The Shakespeare Theatre's Academy for Classical Acting at George Washington University. At the end of her training she performed in Women Beware Women and Love's Labour's Lost. She feels this was an incredibly challenging and fantastic year which included master classes with Michael Kahn, Maria Aitken and visits from Kathleen Chalfant and Dame Judi Dench.  Right after graduation she was cast as Maria in a production of Twelfth Night directed by Diana Denley, the founder of the Globe Centre in Australia.  She is currently understudying two roles in The Importance of Being Earnest directed by Everett Quinton at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. She still does improvisation and has begun a bit of playwriting as well. On a side note, a couple of years ago she had the opportunity to direct Senator Bob Bennett and his wife Joyce in her ward's production of You Can't Take It With You. He did a terrific job as Grandpa and Joyce was a lovely Duchess.

Posted: July 2005

Janet Van De Graaff

Graduated 1988, Acting

Janet Van De Graaff went to Toronto to get her M.F.A. in acting at York University. After one and a half-years in the Second City National Touring Company, she joined the Toronto Second City Main Stage cast. She wrote and performed in five revues there, receiving two Dora Award nominations for her work. Other theatre credits include The Brady Bunch Live, and The Drowsy Chaperone. She received a 2002 Canadian Comedy Award for her work on the hit Canadian television series History Bites. Her film work includes The Five Senses, Eloise at the Plaza, and Disney’s The Music Man. Television guest appearances include Twice in a Lifetime, Queer As Folk, Wild Card, and The Royal Canadian Air Farce. She is a winner of the 2002 and 2004 Canadian Comedy Awards for Best Female Improvisor. She currently stars in the all-girl sketch show Listen Missy, and appears in the new mockumentary series, It’s Me…Gerald.

Posted: July 2005

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