In 2016, Jude is coaxed into a children’s community theater production of Disney’s Mulan: the Musical. While there, he falls in love … with the stage. There’s a moment where the eleven-year-old looks out into the audience, breaks character, and a flash of pure joy is captured.
From that moment Jude is hooked on acting, film, and theater. Movie watching is no longer simple. Every element of the piece falls under his scrutiny. He enrolls at The Hun School, in Princeton, New Jersey, where he studies drama and takes up residence in the theater.
He performs in all the middle school shows and is cast in three high school shows as a middle school student, while simultaneously volunteering for the tech crew and absorbing every aspect of production. During the summer, he travels to New York, taking classes at ACTNY and workshops at McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey. When Covid hits, he continues taking virtual acting classes.
In 2020, Jude is a freshman in high school. Covid-19 forces his school to pivot. Classes are offered in a hybrid format and the theater department produces a radio show to give kids a chance to perform while socially distanced. They audition, rehearse, and perform virtually. Jude plays “Dracula” in Dracula: a Comedy of Terrors. In the tenth grade, productions resume; he is cast in the fall (“Orsin Duke,” What You Will) and winter shows (“Scarecrow,” The Wiz), while serving as a sound technician and set builder for the Performing Arts Department. In the spring, he takes a supporting role in One in Ten, an original play about women’s history at his school, while playing baseball.
Jude is currently enrolled in advanced training at the Atlantic Acting School at New York University TISCH. In his spare time, he is an avid mountain biker, plays baseball, and esports. He spends as much time as he can working in the theater and on set – he builds sets, volunteers as a sound technician, and provides voiceovers for concerts and productions.
In the summer of 2022, Jude enrolls at Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Center in upstate New York. He is cast as “Hamlet” in the audition-based “Players Ensemble” and as “Algernon” in The Importance of Being Earnest. At the closing ceremony, he receives the two top awards: “Outstanding Performance in a Lead Roll” and his cast “Best Ensemble.”
Later that summer, the Janus Players travel to Edinburgh, Scotland for the Festival Fringe, where Jude reprises his roll as “Orsin Duke” in What You Will.
