hi, i’m jere.
I’m an author, educator, theatre artist, husband, father, storyteller, and lifelong believer in the power of a really good and.
For more than two decades, my work has lived at the intersection of storytelling and teaching—sometimes in a classroom, sometimes in a rehearsal room, sometimes onstage, and now increasingly on the page.
I’ve spent my career helping people discover what they’re capable of: students finding their voices, actors finding their characters, audiences finding themselves inside a story, and, lately, readers finding permission to live faithfully in lives that don’t always resolve the way they expected.
I believe stories matter because people matter. I believe laughter and grief can occupy the same room. I believe questions and faith can coexist. And I believe some of the most meaningful parts of our lives happen before we know how the story ends.
Apparently, I have built an entire life around the word and.
the life behind the work
I live in Mesa, Arizona, with my wife, Allyson, and our three kids, Maggie, Max, and Mayzie—my favorite people and the ones who have had front-row seats to just about every version of me.
Allyson and I have spent more than two decades building a life together through career changes, raising kids, theatre schedules, faith, loss, laughter, unexpected detours, and more than a few moments when neither of us had any idea what came next.
Our family has never been particularly interested in looking polished. We laugh loudly. We tease relentlessly. We show up for one another. And somewhere along the way, they became a huge part of how I came to understand the very thing I now write about: a meaningful life doesn't have to be a perfectly resolved one.
When I'm not teaching, directing, writing, or finding another project I apparently desperately needed to begin, I'm usually with them—and that's still my favorite role.
my artistic statement
Theatre, at its best, is a conversation between artist and audience—a moment of shared humanity where a story can make us laugh, challenge what we believe, or help us recognize something about ourselves.
That's the kind of theatre I want to make.
As a director, I believe in honoring the text while making bold theatrical choices. I love dynamic staging, complicated characters, unexpected humor, and finding ways to use the entire playing space to tell the story. Whether I'm working in-the-round or on a proscenium stage, I want the audience to feel invited into the world we've created—not simply asked to watch it from a distance.
But the work starts long before an audience arrives.
I believe rehearsal rooms should be built on trust, curiosity, discipline, and play. Actors do their best work when they're given permission to explore and the tools to succeed. Designers aren't there to decorate a production; they're storytellers. Collaboration isn't something that happens around the work.
Collaboration is the work.
I've spent more than two decades as an actor, director, and educator, and those roles continue to shape one another. Teaching has made me a better director. Directing has made me a better actor. Acting has reminded me what I'm asking of people when I sit on the other side of the table.
Whatever my role, I'm after the same thing:
Tell the story clearly. Make something worth experiencing. Leave people a little different than we found them.
Blithe Spirit - Toro Theatre Company
The Curious Savage - FuseBox Theatre
Rent - MCC
the work
My work has taken me into classrooms, rehearsal rooms, theatres, studios, and now onto the page. Different spaces. Different audiences. Same basic purpose:
Tell stories that help people see themselves—and one another—a little more clearly.
Want to see what that looks like?
Living in the And
teaching, training &
The Actor’s Ink Studio
acting, directing &
production work