[NEohioPAL] Berko: Spotlight on Greg Violand

[Roy Berko]

Profile:  Greg Violand
a working actor who is staying
local!

By Roy Berko

Most native North Coasters who are interested in being
in the theatre flee the area as soon as they are old
enough or feel they have gained the ability to make it
“big.”   They migrate to New York, LA, or Chicago—the
meccas of the entertainment industry.  “There is just
not enough work here to financial sustain me,” one
such transient said.

Not so with Westlake resident Greg Violand.  Violand,
along with Maryann Nagel, his wife of 22 years, have
remained in the area and are prospering, at least by
“artist” standards.   They are two of the few local
theatre performance regulars who don’t teach, direct,
“have real jobs” or do temping to pay their way.  They
are performers.  They act, they model, they do
industrial films, occasionally getting work away from
here, but return to this area and make it their home.

Violand, a graduate of Elyria Catholic High School, is
now appearing in ‘FORBIDDEN BROADWAY, SPECIAL VICTIMS
UNIT,’ at the Hanna Theatre, where he gets to sing,
dance and act, and do takeoffs of ‘FIDDLER ON THE
ROOF,’ ‘SPAMALOT,’ and ‘THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA.’ 
The show is scheduled to run through December 2.  

Violand has been acting professionally for over twenty
years.  He has been seen on stage at such venues as
Beck Center, Cain Park, Dobama, Actors’ Summit,
Cleveland Play House, Great Lakes Theater Festival,
Lakeland Theatre and Elyria Summer  Theatre.   He is a
multi Times Theatre Tribute award winner.

It was through Elyria Summer theatre that I first met
Greg when he played Fagin in ‘OLIVER.’  My son, Eric,
was Artful Dodger in that production.  Shortly after
that meeting, I hired Greg to teach at Lorain County
Community College.  He much preferred performing to
teaching, so he morphed into his role as “freelance
actor.” “Versatility and availability are the keys”,
he says, “ you have to have as many skills as possible
to get a job and be willing to go anywhere at anytime
to do them.” Last year found him in Hawaii for a job
and he’s booked in Orlando in February.  Most recently
he was in ‘BECOMING GEORGE,’ a musical which received
its world premiere at MetroStage in Alexandria,
Virginia.  

Other credits include the movies ‘FALLING IN LOVE,’
with Robert DeNiro and Meryl Streep and  ‘MIRACLE
DOG,’ which was shot in Chagrin Falls with Rue
McClanahan, Kate Jackson and Stacy Keach.  Greg
recounted, during a recent interview, that he
sometimes gets stopped at super markets when people
recognize him as “that guy in the movie about the
three-legged dog,” which gets regular play time on
late night TV.

Why does he stay in the Cleveland area?  His family is
here, he prefers bringing up his tween-aged daughter
in this area rather than in NY or LA.  That doesn’t
mean he wouldn’t be interested in going somewhere else
if the opportunity was right, but he considers himself
a “working actor, not a star .”

He finds his latest assignment, working with the
four-person cast of ‘FORBIDDEN BROADWAY,’ to be fun. 
It gives him an opportunity to run in a show for four
months rather than the usual two or three weeks.  He
recounts that the director, Bill Selby, is “a good
guy,” who has done the show a long time.  As for the
cast, Greg smiles as he says, “I’m old enough to be
their father.”

What happens from here?  As is the case when you are
in an industry where there is no security, no
certainty of a tomorrow, he isn’t sure.  He’ll
continue to try out for shows that recognize his
status in Actor’s Equity, the national actor’s union,
do industrial films and commercials and voice-overs,
and maybe, if the opportunity is right, venture off to
other horizons.  In the meantime, six times a week on
the stage of the Hanna Theatre, among other
characterizations, he puts on a dress and wig and
mimics Harvey Firestone as a cross-dressing Tevya, in
‘FIDDLER ON THE ROOF’ meets ‘HAIRSPRAY.’

Roy Berko's blog, which contains theatre and dance reviews from 2002 through 2007, as well as his consulting and publications information, can be found at http://royberko.info
      
Roy's theatre and dance reviews appear regularly on NeOHIOpal, an on-line source.   To subscribe to this free service via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.fredsternfeld.com/mailman/listinfo/neohiopal.  His reviews also appear on www.coolcleveland.com


       
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