Today (Friday, Feb. 5): Follow along with Todd Cerveris as he takes over the Denver Centers Instagram account. Click here.

MEET TODD CERVERIS
Gov. George Wallace and Walter Reuther in All The Way

At the DCPA: Debut. Broadway: South Pacific, Twentieth Century. Off-Broadway premieres: Southern Comfort; Almost, Maine; The Booth Variations. National Tours: War Horse, Spring Awakening, Twelve Angry Men, The Acting Company. Regional: Arena Stage (True West), La Jolla Playhouse (Boy), Old Globe (August: Osage County, All In The Timing), Pioneer Theater (I Hate Hamlet), Kansas City Rep (The Great Immensity) Cincinnati Playhouse (Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Complete Word of God, Abridged, King Lear, Death of a Salesman), Actors Theater of Louisville (Aloha, Say The Pretty Girls). International: Edinburgh Fringe, Actors Touring Co. TV/Film: “Allegiance,” “The Affair,” “White Collar,” “Nurse Jackie,” “Law & Order,” “One True Thing.”

• Hometown: Huntington, W.V.
• Training: Yale University; masters degree from University of California San Diego
• What was the role that changed your life: Alan Strang in Equus in high school. It was a chance to prove to myself that I could do more than I thought I could.
• Why are you an actor? I spent five years after college trying to do anything else. But at the end of the day, I never felt satisfied and this was something I knew how to do.  
• What would you be doing for a career if you weren’t an actor? I’d like to be a photojournalist or wildlife photographer.



• Ideal scene partner: I would have liked to work with Phillip Seymour Hoffman. He seemed to be so present in every moment of his work. I think I would have learned a great deal from working with him.
• Why does All The Way matter? Theater is communal storytelling. This play tells one story of our American community. The benefit of a communal forum, one in which we share in each other’s varied responses to the subject matter, cannot be achieved as well when you are the only viewer. The most important part of the play is the change – in political commitment, in perspective, in understanding – within the audience, and part of that change is watching how it affects other people around you.
• What do you hope the audience gets out of it? Their money’s worth.
• Finish this sentence: “All I want is …”
  “…there to be nothing – not even a god – that is more valuable than the life and dignity of another person.”

Todd Cerveris was part of a video in which ‘All the Way’ cast members read part of the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964. Watch it here. Photo above by John Moore

A TODD CERVERIS BONUS:
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What does Todd Cerveris have in common with Sweeney Todd? Cerveris is the brother of two-time Tony Award-winning Broadway actor Michael Cerveris, whose credits include the Demon Barber. Michael won his first Tony in 1993 for The Who’s Tommy, and last year for playing the conflicted father in Fun Home opposite Castle Rock native Beth Malone.

The brothers are active on social media and are often encouraging each other’s work on Twitter. “The bedeviling thing about my brother is that he’s a nice guy,” said Todd. The pair know each other’s strengths, weaknesses and acting tools better than anyone, so they often play the role of coach or professional adviser to one another, Todd said.

Todd almost never followed in his big brother’s footsteps. “When I graduated from college, it made the most sense to go into theatre – which is why I didn’t,” he said. “I spent about five years doing anything but (theatre). I drove a bike taxi for a while. I taught high-school English. I was a phlebotomist at a health clinic.”

But Todd has another significant, small-world ally in his theatrical corner. He is married to actor Angela Reed, who graduated from Ponderosa High School and the University of Colorado-Boulder. She is a Colorado Shakespeare Festival alum and starred in the DCPA Theatre Company’s 2006 production of After Ashley. She returned to Denver in 2009, playing all of the adult women in the national touring production of Spring Awakening.

“We understand each other,” Todd said. “We’re good at talking each other off the cliff when either of us has been without a job for a long period of time.”

All the Way: Ticket information

Jan. 29-Feb. 28 at the Stage Theatre

Previous NewsCenter coverage of All the Way
5 things we learned about ‘All the Way’: Johnson gave a dam!
Video: Cast reads from Civil Rights Act
When Robert Schenkkan meets LBJ, sparks fly
Five ways you don’t have to connect the dots ‘All the Way’ to today
Art and Artist: Stage Manager Rachel Ducat
Full casting announced
Official show page
DCPA Theatre Company giddily going down rabbit hole in 2015-16

Previous 2015-16 ‘Meet the Cast’ profiles:
Meet Adeoye of Lookingglass Alice and All the Way
Meet Kevin Berntson of The Nest
Meet J. Paul Boehmer of As You Like It
Meet Molly Brennan of Lookingglass Alice
Meet Courtney Capek of A Christmas Carol
Meet Brian D. Coats of The Nest
Meet Tad Cooley of Tribes
Meet Paul DeBoy of All the Way
Meet Allen Dorsey of A Christmas Carol
Meet Kevin Douglas of Lookingglass Alice
Meet Napoleon M. Douglas of A Christmas Carol
Meet Brian Dykstra of The Nest
Meet Isabel Ellison of Tribes
Meet Kate Finch of Tribes
Meet Ella Galaty of A Christmas Carol
Meet Mike Hartman of All the Way
Meet Ben Heil of A Christmas Carol
Meet Carolyn Holding of As You Like It
Meet Drew Horwitz of As You Like It
Meet Maurice Jones of As You Like It
Meet Geoffrey Kent of As You Like It and All the Way
Meet Emily Kron of As You Like It
Meet Nick LaMedica of As You Like It
Meet Victoria Mack of The Nest
Meet David Mason of The Nest
Meet Andrew Pastides of Tribes
Meet Shannan Steele of A Christmas Carol
Meet Carly Street of The Nest
Meet Samuel Taylor of Lookingglass Alice
Meet Lindsey Noel Whiting of Lookingglass Alice
Meet Jake Williamson  of A Christmas Carol
Meet Matt Zambrano of As You Like It