Today we’d like to introduce you to Charlie Brady.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’m originally from San Diego, California, and still very much a West Coaster at heart. I saw my first play on a field trip in elementary school around 3rd or 4th grade, and I knew immediately I had to do that! That indescribable, visceral feeling that you have to do something. I had very supportive parents who put me in all the classes – voice classes, dancing classes, acting classes, and started doing children’s theater immediately following. As the proximity is quite close, I started taking acting classes in L.A. around 6th grade or so, and that led to getting an agent and starting to audition and doing the kid actor thing all through middle school. I joke with people that I peaked at 13 when I was a regular on the Disney Channel series Kids Incorporated.
Once I got to high school, I started doing the plays and musicals at school, and I had a majorly impactful high school drama teacher that really reconnected my love and need to do theater, and I kind of let go of that TV and Film ambition in LA. After high school, I was incredibly fortunate to graduate from Carnegie Mellon University as a Musical Theater major. Over the summers during college, I would work at the regional theater The Muny in St. Louis, getting professional experience and making New York connections. And naturally, that led to moving to New York, pursuing an acting career there.
In 16 years as an actor in NYC, I was lucky enough to work on Broadway, Off-Broadway, National Tours, and reputable Regional Theaters around the country, with some incredible artists on and off stage. In 2013, I met my future wife (who I worked with at The Muny in 1999!) Lauren Kennedy, and was convinced (willingly) into moving to Raleigh!
Lauren is the Executive Director of the professional theater company, Theatre Raleigh, and in our early days as I was transitioning my life to NC, I would act and direct there. Getting to know the Triangle’s theater artists has been an inspiring journey, and I had discovered there was a well established community of playwrights and an educated appreciation for new works and development. This was always the work I loved most as an actor, and I saw an opportunity for a mission to recreate some of the incredible programs and institutions I had worked for who did it so well – places like the legendary Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Playwrights Horizons, The Vineyard Theater, etc.
And in 2020 I started our non-profit, Capital Arts Theater Guild, with a mission to be a major player in the development and exposure of new plays and musicals! COVID slowed down our initial vigor in getting programming out – but this allowed us to really hone in our approach to curating and executing our programs. And 5 years later we have made a solid mark in the field with 4 different plays our programs have helped develop find full professional productions across the region, setting them up for further success!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I think the actor’s life and the amount of rejection you receive coupled with financial instability is a tale as old as time. When you are growing up in the field you always hear about it, and maybe it’s even romanticized a bit, but actually living it certainly came with periods of alot of self doubt, lack of fulfillment, undervaluing what I had to offer, which leads to an overall lack of confidence and belief in yourself. It’s not something you can really prepare for, and it really made me dig deep in the most essential way to develop the skill to be able to put the challenges and hardships behind you, pick yourself back up and keep hustling. It’s a necessary ability in any arts position really I feel like, and that part of my life really prepared me for the hustle of building a non-profit.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
The developmental process of any new piece of theater is the non glamorous part of the journey of any big production you’ve ever seen. The early steps that the general public doesn’t ever really know about starts with many table reads and staged readings for a writing team or playwright to hear their work out loud while they edit their piece. Both the National Music Theater Foundry and the Carolina Playwrights Lab are our programs that do this with the most resources including a professional production team consisting of directors, actors, stage managers, dramaturgs, and a tech team. Each of these programs are 2 week platforms where the writers will be editing their work all along the way, culminating in public presentations where the audience can submit their feedback for the writer to understand how their material is being received – further informing their edits. Additionally, after each presentation are closed, moderated feedback session with 3 industry professionals that consist of artistic directors, playwrights, actors, etc. These sessions offer the writers a more organic and reciprocal avenue for creative conversation to happen.
Playwrights and Musical Theatre writing teams are massively dependent on programs and institutions like ours to take their pieces to the level necessary to make their mark in the theater canon – not only for the resources afforded to help them fine tune the words on the page, but they are exposure opportunities in the quest to connect to theaters to produce these budding classics.
I would say I am most proud of our ability to shepherd 4 plays in our first 5 years to full professional productions around the region. Not only is it the dream for the playwrights to continue their work to that level, but it is incredible validation to all of the team members for their passion and dedication to making these programs happen.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
I think my appreciation level on all fronts has just grown and specified over the course of my experience as only experience can inform it. It’s never just about one person, even though it seems like its every person for themself in theater. Especially in the non-profit sector, there are so many people coming together that believe in the mission and don’t get paid anywhere close to their value in these early stages, and nothing happens without that spirit and passion for this common interest.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.capitalartstheaterguild.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/capital_arts_theater_guild/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CapitalArtsTheaterGuild/
