Alexio K. Barboza
Equity and SAG-AFTRA Actor and Singer
Reflection on my Theatrical Education
I attended Albright College for three full years, and took a year abroad in Scotland at the University of Edinburgh. Over these years, I learned so much from my professors and peers at Albright that I am not sure where I would be without them and what they have taught me.
I have learned a lot from all the productions I have performed in including: Bobrauschenberg America, Ordinary Days, Vortex, Checking Out, Den of Thieves, and Clybourne Park. These shows awakened the actor in me. I have learned to find my voice while speaking lines in plays. That is the ability to project and fill a room with clear dialog and stories. I have also learned an extremely valuable lesson in viewpoints. The idea that 100% of the time an actor must know what he is looking at; this is something I had never really thought about but it really makes a performance so much more powerful. I got the part of the Czar in the production of Vortex and it was a very unique acting challenge, and though I was not a large part I watched the
leading actors and learned a lot from them through their growth in the rehearsal process. Being the Czar and having a part that had to portray fatherly dominance, was also a unique experience. Through my life I usually have parts where I’m the sweet likable character, but having a part that wasn’t necessarily supposed to be liked was pretty interesting. Because I have realized that my default character or default acting style is playing the sweet likable and polite guy, it was nice to shake things up and try something different.
Then I also learned a great deal about backstage life during my Sophomore year at Albright College while assisting in productions like: God of Carnage, and Dancing at Lughnasa. As a dresser in God of Carnage, the experience became an awesome learning opportunity for me; I learned a lot more than I thought I would. I have never really had a backstage position before, so with this being the first time I learned a lot about the process of making theatre and it enhanced my understanding of its collaborative nature. Then as the Prop Manager in Dancing at Lughnasa I worked really hard to bring to life this 1930s rural Irish home through stage props and scenery pieces. I really love my history so it was very interesting and educational to search for and find all those props.
My courses have also been a key part of my theatrical training. From learning all about directing in Professor Jeffrey Lentz’s Directing Studio, to learning about acting styles and different types of theatre. I learned about the history of American theatre, and then while at the University of Edinburgh I learned about a huge variety of European plays from all over the continent including countries like: Spain, France, Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, Sweden, and others. They were plays such as: Racine, Iphigenia, Miss Julie, Friedrich Schiller’s Mary Stuart, Karel Capek’s R.C.R., Vaclav Havel’s The Garden Party, Samuel Beckett’s Endgame and Waiting for Godot, Maret/Sade, Blood Wedding, Gerhart Hauptmann’s Lonely Lives, Fabrizio Gifuni’s Gadda Goes to War, and many more. And sometimes we had to study them in their respective native language and this got very tough, so it helped to have international friends. In my Senior year back at Albright College, my Senior Seminar class did a fabulous job preparing me for life after graduation and making sure I was prepared for job searching in the outside world.
My Senior year began by taking voice lessons with Professor Jeffrey Lentz, and after an entire year abroad singing only a bit here and there, it was great to find my voice again and let that music soar! This technical and operatic training with my voice was invaluable for going back to professional auditions. That final year, I gathered and honed my acting and singing skills so that I could leave Albright College with confidence and the sense of being prepared for my future auditions and job opportunities. Within me, I can feel ready and passionate about getting out there and auditioning again, and I feel pumped and psyched to keep striving and working hard to succeed within this business that I love.