Geek of the Week: Andrew Dunn

Where’re you originally from?
So, uh, that’s a loaded question. It’s a long answer but I’ll give you the Cliff’s notes. I was born in Toledo, Ohio. I was raised in Asheville, North Carolina. [I moved] back to Toledo, Ohio when I was fifteen. I went to college in Michigan and then went to graduate school in New York.

So were you [growing up] a majority in North Carolina or Ohio?
I now live in New Jersey and other than New Jersey, I have lived in – all the other places I have lived in equally… Five years in Ohio. Ten years in North Carolina. Five years in Ohio again – and then ten years in New York.

That makes my next question a little complicated then. It makes it a two-parter, I guess. How would you describe your hometown?
So, if I had to choose – if someone said, “Give me one place you’re from.” It would be Asheville, North Carolina. So, for me, Asheville, North Carolina – I describe it as the most progressive liberal place I’ve ever lived, including New York City. [It’s] the kind of place where a guy in like a ripped tie-dye shirt with dreadlocks that’re six feet long will ride up to you in his cut-off jean shorts on a unicycle while juggling torches. And if you go to hand him a dollar, he’ll say, “Oh, no thanks. I don’t do this for money. I just do this.” And then [he’ll] cycle away.

When did you or your parents decide – or both – to have you enroll in the [former] Performing Arts School of Metropolitan Toledo (PASMT)?
I had always had success… I guess in public schools which is where I got started in like elementary school, I did really badly but like I tested really well. But like I could never do my homework… My grades in classes were really bad. I hated going – and then we found out about this charter school in North Carolina still. It was a middle school that like my favorite teachers from the public schools all got together and started their own school. And then so my mom was like, “You like all of those teachers. Why don’t we try that place?” And I flourished there. It was great! It was personalized and it was totally dedicated to the individual. Instead of doing tests or pop quizzes, I did projects where I got up and spoke to the class. And that was a huge eye-opener for me – that like I could talk about anything, but writing it down was always a real struggle. That was at Francine Delany’s New School For Children. I don’t why all the charter schools have these ridiculously long names. That was in Asheville and then we moved back to Ohio. …I was born there. My grandparents were there.  My mom was like, “Well, they’re getting older. We should go back to be close to them just in case anything happens.” …That was in 2002 and my Mom was like, “Well, you kind of like performing arts and the only charter school really in the area is a performing arts school. So why don’t we check to see what that’s like?”
So I auditioned for that and I got in. I never did well in public school, so I got into a charter school – and just went with that one.

How would you describe your time at PASMT?
Man, uh, whimsical and… I definitely grew a lot there but I don’t know how much of it was because of proactivity on the part of surroundings or how much of it was like me picking up the pieces that were left behind by the people who were supposed to be helping grow and helping me expand my horizons. A lot of the time it felt like I was sort of trying to like teach the teachers, teach the students, or help people here and there where like the school was sort of missing the mark. But they also had their own stuff going on. There were all sorts of internal problems and struggles that they had to deal with as well. I got there kind of late.

…I started there three or four years before the school closed down – so like they were already on their way – having weird problems and trying to bring in teachers to help fix things. So, like a lot of the stuff – I’ve actually talked about this with my [former] classmates from there. I feel like I sort of didn’t get to see the school that most of the students [from] there remember it as because my first year was my Sophomore year in 2002 and we were in the main school that most people remember [off of Reynolds Rd]. And then the second year, I felt a little more comfortable my Junior year. And then my Senior year, we were in a mall – then this office building downtown [Toledo]. So I was like…I don’t know. Is this normal for this place or what? And thankfully, by one year, I managed to get my diploma from there and head out to college right after that. I don’t know how I would describe it other than that. …I didn’t take a single acting class at PASMT. I didn’t take a single one. I took like twenty music classes and three or four dance classes. I didn’t know I wanted to do performing arts for a while after I started there, but I remember I didn’t go to the first audition that they had [for a show], when I started. One of the directors – I don’t remember who it was…I think it must’ve been Miss Stroud came up to me and was like, “Hey. We noticed you didn’t audition. But also you’re a boy, so we really need you to be in this show.”
And I was like, “Well, sorry, I don’t wanna break the rules.”
They were like, “Why don’t we pretend you auditioned and you can just come to callbacks.” And so I was like, “All right. Fine.”
And then I got up there and just said words. I didn’t know what acting was.  I was just saying the things they told me to say. Through that way I got to know the acting teachers. And by that route, I was like – I’m fine with saying this on the record… This is gonna sound somewhat mean, but I remember thinking, “I don’t wanna learn from these people.”

I remember there was one of the shows I was in. One of the directors – like I did something. My character died – was stabbed. I had to die and it was in a comedy, so I did it a funny way and there was a long pause and the director went [and heaved a disappointed sigh]. And I was like, “Oh, was that not okay?”
And he was like, “No, it’s fine.” And that’s how I knew I needed to change what I was doing. So, I was like, “Oh, I don’t wanna learn theatre from these people.” The music teachers were always well-versed in their craft, so I was okay I wanna learn all of this. And the dance teachers were really good at what they were doing. But I felt like a lot of the acting stuff, I was like, “Nah. I’m not gonna learn this here and I didn’t.”

When did you decide to audition for the Actors Studio then? What was that like?
The Actors Studio was graduate school, so right out of high school, I got into a private school called Siena Heights University and this is actually a funny story. My senior year of that, I started applying everywhere. I went to [the] URTAs… A bunch a graduate school recruiters meet in one building and then you audition for like fifty people – but before you get to them, you’ve to audition for a room of two people at a desk. And so if you’re not good enough to get past those two people at the desk, you don’t see the rest of the people. And I wasn’t good enough to get past those two people at the desk. And that left me super jaded, but I was like that’s okay, I’ve got like five or six backups. I had DePaul University where – when I auditioned for them, they did a thing where all the people auditioning had to stand in a circle…We passed an orange around. When the orange made its way to you, you had to do a physical action of your choice and a vocal thing of your choice. So, people get the orange and they go, “Whoooooo!”
And then it goes to the next person. They go, “Bwuh-buh-buh-buh-buh.”
And right before it gets to me [the orange], the person who’s leading this [activity] stops it and says, “Listen! If you guys aren’t gonna take this seriously, I’m gonna ask you all to leave.”
And…I hadn’t done it yet, but I didn’t see anything uncalled for. They looked like they were doing exactly what was asked of them. Then they were like, “All right. Let’s try this again!” Then it was my turn and I was like I don’t know what they wanna see that’s different. So I just did the thing I was gonna do anyway. I was also like, “Is this the acting I wanna learn? Is this acting?”

Then I didn’t get accepted there. There were two other places I applied to for graduate school. They were all big names – like NYU, Columbia, stuff like that – but my one backup was Illinois State University and I didn’t get accepted there either. So, here I was in the “Middle of Nowhere, Michigan” in a corn field – Adrian, Michigan – where Siena Heights University is. It’s a great school. It’s just in the middle of nowhere. And I was like, “Well, I’d done some carpentry in the theatre department there. There’s a lumberyard in town. Maybe I’ll try to get a job there. My girlfriend at the time was trying to get me to apply to Taco Bell. I was like, “Oh, man. I’m goin’ nowhere. This sucks.”

And then a friend of mine [said to me], “Hey, I’m auditioning for this school at – at the drama school at Pace University. They don’t do monologues. They only do scenes. So I need a scene partner. Would you be willing to help me with that?”
And I was like, “Oh, yeah. I’ll help you with that. Sure!” So, we start doing it and he convinces me to put in an application as well. And I’m like, “Yeah. Why not?” I’m already doing the work – right?” I might as well just sign my name and send in a letter. So we do that. We send in our tape. We do a scene from Glengarry Glen Ross. And… I got an acceptance letter and he did not…There’s a sequel. He got in next year.

What is one of your ultimate dreams?
It’s weird because I have so many different paths that I have already started on – that I’m walking on simultaneously and parallel… Set design, acting, audio editing, video editing, and podcast-making. Each of those probably have their own dreams. But the earliest one I remember being like, “Oh, man. I wanna do that!” …One of the first shows I got to see on Broadway after I moved to New York by Jez Butterworth called Jerusalem and it starred Mark Rylance in the lead role. I remember watching that…I watched it with the person I was dating and her aunt I think got us the tickets. She was nice and all like, “I’m visiting New York. Let’s all go to a show together!”

And one of my professors at school was like, “You guys need to see this if you can” and we went to see it. …All three of us went to see it and afterwards, my girlfriend’s aunt was like, “Man. What a bad show!” And we had to be like, “Yeah…Wow. Whatever.” And then afterwards – after she left, my girlfriend and I were like, “Yo, but that was a really good show, right?” And we were like, “Yeah. It was incredible! It’s still the best show I’ve ever seen at –  I think anywhere.” …When that comes back around, because the main character is probably in his forties. …I remember thinking when that comes back around to Broadway for a revival, I have to get in the audition room for that. …That’s a dream role for me. That’s one I’d really like to play.

What is your Hogwarts house and why?
Gryffindor. Courageousness, veracity, loyalty*. …That’s what’s buried deep in my heart… Harry Potter is barely on my geek radar, but I do know that all the cool characters are Gryffindor in the movies.

*Loyalty is actually a main attribute for house, Hufflepuff.

What are some geeky hobbies you partake in?
…Comic books. I read a lot of comic books. I watch a lot of movies. When I was very young – probably nine or ten years old – even before that, when I was three and I don’t remember doing this, but my mom told me that she would put on the movie, Lawrence of Arabia for me. …It’s a boring desert movie that a child should have no interest in, but she would pop that in for me when I would get very cranky and it would shut me up. I would love it. I would sing with the orchestra music. Like the very first thing that happens in the film is that the sun comes up and there’s this huge crescendo with the orchestra and I would sing a long with it. Movies from that very moment went on to be incredibly integral in my life.
When I was ten, I think – I was a mature kid and my mom decided, “I think we’re gonna try leaving you at home” – well not leaving me at home, but after school I’d have to go to a daycare or something. And at ten years old, [she said something like] we’re gonna try you riding the bus home on your own with the keys for the house. Then my mom didn’t get off work until six. And she was like, “We’ll see how that goes.”
She had a bookshelf that was filled with VHS tapes – probably a hundred VHS tapes. And every single day, I would come home, I’d get off the bus, and the first time it happened, I started on the top shelf all the way to the left, I picked that one – popped it in and watched it. The next day, I went to the next one over to the right. [The] next days it was the third one, the fourth one, then the fifth one… Until I made my way through all of the movies within probably six months – and that included some that would stay with me for the rest of my life like Close Encounters of a Third Kind, the Robin Williams movie – Good Morning, Vietnam, Young Frankenstein, New Jack City was a weird choice to have on there, but just tons and tons…January Man, A Fish Called Wanda…Really good classics…All the Star Wars [films]… The original trilogy of Star Wars is like a huge huge part in my life. …Basically anything that is nerdy or geeky about me probably comes from that very moment of when I started watching those VHS tapes…

When did you first realize you were a geek or rather realized you liked the previously mentioned things?
Probably high school. I remember at PAS[MT] – I don’t remember what they called it. …Spirit week? Where every day you dress a certain way or something… I remember one of them was Heritage Day and I was like well, I am just such a mix of so many things…I was like I could probably choose Irish as a safe bet…But do I wanna dress as a leprechaun? How do you dress [Irish], ya know?…
I remember being like, “Oh, I am definitely going dressed as geek.” People kind of just like disagreed with me. Other students were like, “Ya know – that’s not your real heritage.” And I was like, “Yeah. No kidding.”
But I would also say back, “No, no. It’s true. I come from a long line of nerds.” Which was also true. It’s not based on nationality or the color of my skin but like there was something that resonated with me.

There was also a turning point where I was like probably around fourteen years old I started realizing, “Oh, it’s odd that I know all these things.”  I would make all these movie references and… people would just sort of smile and nod. And it wasn’t until high school where I was like, “Oh, no. I’m the only one who’s seen any of these. Like no one here has seen Star Wars.” I still come into that. I work for a licensing company. One of our biggest licenses is Star Wars and the head of my department has never seen a Star Wars movie. So like it’s stuff like that… It never occurred to me that no one else had seen films or read a lot of the books that I had read…Or played video games I’d played – and TV shows as well. I probably as a kid watched eight hours a day of television – for ten years, probably. I’d watch two hours in the morning while getting ready and then like six hours between four o’clock when I got home and ten o’clock when I went to bed. I just straight up watched television while I ate dinner.
So right around fourteen [or] fifteen, I realized that I was different but I didn’t quite know that there was a category that had been pre-determined that I fit nicely into until about fifteen or sixteen.

If you could take the place of any fictional character from any book, show, comic, musical, anything – who would you choose? And why?
Aw, man. This is such a hard question.
…Probably, Iron Man – Tony Stark…Before I got into comics I watched a lot of the comic book-based cartoons shows when I was a kid. I watched Spiderman every day. Batman – the animated series, Fantastic Four, X-Men was a big one… That was something like – even now, other people I know who were raised similarly and love comics and stuff. They’re like, “The X-Men cartoon is the best! Batman the animated series – it’s so good!” But to this day, I don’t think I’ve ever met a single person who remembers the IronMan cartoon and that was my favorite one.
So even when they announced that Robert Downey Jr. was going to be playing Tony Stark, I was like – oh, man. They just put the last nail in the coffin for this. They got this guy who’s like a drug addict, alcoholic, in and out of jail… He’s gonna be playing my favorite hero? It’s never gonna work. It’s never gonna take off. No one’s gonna like this. And of course, I was incredibly wrong. I saw the movie like four times in theatres and am a huge fan.  But there’s something about not only being able to…The term for having cash that is disposable is liquid and there’s something very fluid about being able to fix…There are only certain problems that punching can fix. There are only certain problems that magic can fix if you’re Doctor Strange. But like money can fix just about any problem because it can be used to create solutions. So I feel in that way Bruce Wayne fits in that as well, but I don’t want to be an orphan for the first fifteen years of my life, so I think Tony Stark is probably the way to go.

Who is someone you look up to and why?
Feel free to name two or three.
The most obvious one was my mom. She passed away – it’ll be seven years ago. But I have spent my entire life trying to be as trusting and gracious as her. I think she was also…
Speaking of nerdiness, she was definitely like an undercover nerd. She’d read a book in two days. She’d a library of Stephen King novels. One of our rooms, which eventually became our computer room once we got a computer – before that, it was a Stephen King library. Because I ended up loving Stephen King – probably a good reason [rather] a main reason that I started getting into horror films as well. We would watch all of Stephen King’s movies. She’d all the Stephen King movies, so I’m sure they were on that shelf when I was going through them. And I remember one time…I remember when I was very young and it was raining out. I looked out the window and there was what I thought was a man with long blond hair standing out in the road [in] pouring down rain screaming. And I was like, “Mom, there’s like this crazy guy outside and he’s screaming or whatever.”
And she was like, “What?”
And she took a look outside and said, “That’s a woman.”
And without hesitation, she walked outside and I was like, “What are you doing?” She walked straight up to the person…
To this day, I don’t know what she said to her. But she was talking to her [for a while]. Eventually she put her arm around the woman’s shoulder and brought her into our home and sat with her while she called social services. She made her dinner. She called social services, helped get her a place to stay…It turned out that her boyfriend or husband or someone had kicked her out. She couldn’t get in. He’d changed the locks. She’d nowhere to go. She was just a person. I know people with mental illness are just people but she wasn’t a threat in any way.
I mean we can get into the politics… And that kind of thing that’s been happening with the police in America. People with mental illness have the feeling of uncertainty and a lack of safety around them…And [it] has led to a lot of problems. My mom ended up being on the Board of Mental Health in Toledo by the time I was in high school. She started as a secretary.

One day her boss came in and said, “Oh shoot! I forgot! I have to give that grant for graduate school. Hey – do you want a free ride to go get your master’s degree.” She was like, “What?”
And he was like, “I forgot I have to  – by today  – give someone it to get their master’s degree. Otherwise I’ll lose this tax break. Do you wanna go to school and get your master’s degree for free?”
And she was like, “In what?”
And he was like, “Social work.” And she said, “Sure.”
And so she got her Master’s in Social Work because her boss had to give a grant to someone and she happened to be sitting there. So, she was a social worker for a year. She worked in a methadone clinic – helping drug addicts with eventually making her way to the Board of Mental Health for Toledo, Ohio and basically lived her entire life helping people. And she was always the person [where] when I had a hard to decision to make or even an easy decision to make that involved me having to go out of my comfort zone or to decide whether to put myself or someone else first, I [would and still] will usually ask myself what I think my mom would do in that situation.

What are some current projects and/or goals you’re working on?
I was up until eight this morning editing this podcast that I co-host and then I go to work full-time starting at nine, so I managed to climb into bed as my fiancé was waking up. I crashed for an hour. So I currently have a podcast that I co-host, produce, and I edit called The Media Lunchbreak. It’s a comics meets movies podcast that co-host with my friend, Chris Triebil…We worked together for a very short amount of time. And every day on our lunchbreak, we would go to the same place together and just talk about comics, movies, and stuff. And we were just like, “We should record this and put it up.” Now we have kind of like a following, which is great. We’re making some money off of it. It’s now paying more than it costs which was a huge milestone for us.
I also work with Infinite Variety Productions. We just did an immersive show ­– right before the pandemic about the life of Nellie Blithe, which actually you’re involved with. And now we are now working on a radio play – which actually, I might get back in touch with you about because we’ve a lot of characters as well in that one. And that is based on true stories of five women who served in the Vietnam war. You couldn’t be a soldier but they were nurses, donut dollies, [and] one was in administration…It’s sort of their true story about the things that happened to them then and how it later affected them in their lives.
I’m also working on something a friend of mine in college put up. She just made something called, The Drama Debrief. Everyone should check that out because it’s great resource for theatre nerds. She was like, “Hey, this pandemic is making it so that theatre students don’t really have a lot of resources that they need.” And so she was just like, “I’m gonna consolidate all of these things into a newsletter. My co-host for the podcast, Chris is creating content for that. I’m gonna be teaching a series in stage combat, a series in theatre vocabulary, and my fiancé who is a video editor – she and I are going to both make a series on how to shoot and edit a self-tape for in quarantine. And last but not least…I helped put a new show up called, Lady Capulet. So it’s about Juliet’s mother from Romeo & Juliet. And it’s sort of a prequel for her and how she got to the place where she is. It looks at the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets. I played Capulet – the man who becomes her husband. We are now trying to slowly – the goal was to  put it up on off-Broadway by now, which would be my first off-Broadway credit – which would be incredible. But now because of the pandemic, it looks like we’re slowly starting to rack up some steam and hopefully once everything reopens, we can do it then. Until then, we’re doing Zoom readings…I’m also doing sound editing for a short film but that’s on the back-burner right now. That’s a personal project.  

Was there a time you had to pick yourself back up whilst dream-chasing? What happened?
After a while of really hitting auditions…I was auditioning for a Broadway show every day – every other day – sometimes multiple times a day…I was doing voiceover stuff. My very first paid acting job was [doing a voiceover for] a commercial for a cologne and I had to go in…It took thirty minutes. I went in wearing jean shorts and a tank top. [I] hadn’t showered. I said the same six words over and over again for thirty minutes and then I left. They gave me a check for two thousand dollars and it blew my mind. But after the novelty of that wore off and the more I did that, the more I started feeling like – okay, I’m three hundred thousand dollars in debt because I’ve learned how to craft a character and show honest emotion in the portrayal of a story…The development of a character. What I’m doing now is saying, “Buy this cologne.” So, I stopped doing that and started really hitting the ground for acting. I got an acting job that was directed by a friend of mine. We never sold out. We maybe maxed out at half capacity of the house. And the last performance, not a single person showed up…
We tried to cover up [our disappointment]. We were all making jokes about it like, “Haha, it’s fine!” But we were all pretty down about it. We went to a bar instead and just like got trashed. After that, I was like, “Yeah…I’m probably not acting for a little while.”
I kind of gave up acting. I decided to get a full-time job. And I was like, “If I ever really get that itch, I can always quit that full-time job and go back to it.” I was really struggling before I quit. I was struggling to make it work…I was getting up ridiculously early to hit all of these auditions, trying to see if anyone needed anything, and constantly trying to make those connections. And [I was] burning out doing this.
Then after I got a full-time job, after I told people they couldn’t have me, people started coming to me, being like, “Whatever your schedule is, I’ll make it work…We’ll pay you whatever.” That happened from like five or six different companies. So, that was wild and kind of an insane lesson to learn. I guess it’s like relationships, when you come on too strong and are like, “Come on! Take me! Why won’t anyone take me?” People are gonna be like, “Okay, chill out, buddy.” Ya know? That’s not a way to get someone to care about you or find interest in you. The trick is to just care about yourself, keep yourself open to stuff, and then it’ll come to you. It’s the same with parts and these projects. And I slowly but surely started being like, “Okay, fine – if you really need someone. I’ll try to make it work.” Then I just kept saying yes to everything while I was working forty hours a week. And now I’m at a place where I feel like I have sleep-deprivation down to a science. I can use it to my advantage. I can be like – okay, I’m forgetting my keys and they’re in my hand. Okay, so I know I can stay up for another eight to ten hours. And that’s when it will start to look like the walls are moving. And that’s when I need to pass out…  

What is your dream project to work on?
That’s the thing. I have so many parallel pathways. Because I do music too. Is my dream project to tour in a band? Is to have my podcast be successful?…
I remember – this will be a pretentious name drop but I remember when George Clooney came to our master class at my school. I remember one of the students asked him…Because he said he struggled a lot when he started out before he got his role on ER… And they asked him, “How do you keep going? If you’re not getting work, how do you continue to do art and get better?”
And he said, “Oh, just make your own projects.”
So my dream project [is] I do whatever I want. It’s hard for me to be like, ah man, I wish I could do this one thing because usually if it’s something I wanna do – usually I just think, “How can I do that?” And obviously there are some things that are out of your control like…I’m probably not going to be Elder Price on Broadway in Book of Mormon anytime soon. And that’s not something I would ever really want anyways. There are things outside of your control but there’s nothing to say you couldn’t do a different version of that show or a parody, if that was your dream and you didn’t fit that role. I try to find ways to bring my dream projects to me as much as possible.

What is one of your favorite inspiring quotes?
“I seek refuge in the Buddha. I seek refuge in the Dharma. I seek refuge in the Sangha.”

Buddha translates to “enlightened one.” Dharma translates to “text.” And Sangha translates to “community.” So to me it’s always been a great mantra to use in theatre if I ever feel nervous because the Buddha…is your director. They’ve a full understanding of what this project is supposed to look like. The Dharma is the text. You trust the playwright. All you have to do is go out and say the things the playwright wrote for you to say. It’s all there. All you have to do is say it. And you can trust that that text will act as a conduit for you to ride out on the wave that you need. And the Sangha is the community. In the case of theatre, I think it’s the other actors. If you flub something – if you mess something up, there’s someone across the stage from you who’s gonna be able to pick you back up. If you totally forget your line, you can trust that someone onstage is going to say, “I know what you’re thinking…” Then [they’ll] feed you your line. They’ll be able to figure it out for you.

Where can people find you on social media?

Instagram and MediaLunchBreak on Twitter. I also help out Infinite Variety Productions on their board. And the Drama Debrief! I might be a co-founder.