Dave Cushing

David George Cushing was born in Chicagoland March 14, 1960 to Ann Wright & Donald Dean Cushing of Decatur, Illinois, where mother's sister Karen Joan Wright Noonan sang & played guitar in a high school folk band. Dave's family moved to the Detroit area the same year; Tom Hayden's Royal Oak till early 1966 & then Pleasant Ridge. Motown radio & both the 1967 Detroit riots and Expo '67 Montreal were early influential exposures. His mother reports he used to grin & sing serenades to fellow grocery shoppers from his perch in the grocery shopping cart. An early avid reader, Dave's fall from seriousness was heralded by launching into a comedy routine instead of the ode to poetry appreciation requested by his second grade nun teacher. Edgar Allen Poe & television shows "It's About Time", "The Time Tunnel", "Fireball XL-5", "The Outer Limits" & "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." were favorites, as were Mad Magazine & Forrest J. Ackerman's "Famous Monsters of Filmland" science fiction, horror & fantasy film fanzine. His aunt's record collection led to 3 favorites: The Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night", The New Christy Minstels' "Today"; folk music soundtrack to the film "Advance to the Rear", & NYC TV weird film host John Zacherle's "Monster Mash", full of horror parody songs. Dave got involved in theatre courtesy of Ferndale Community Education's fall 1971 performance of the previous year's film "Scrooge: The Musical", in which he portrayed Alec Guinness' Ghost of Jacob Marley in the adaptation of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", age 11. An even darker role availed in 1972 as part of an adaptation of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery". Filmmaking became a creative expression with writing, directing & starring in an adaptation of Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado". Dave switched schools from south Royal Oak's St. Mary's to Father Coughlin's north Royal Oak Shrine for high school, & appeared as Judge Omar Gaffney in Mary Chase's "Harvey" with Kevin Scollin & Dennis O'Donnell. For Junior Year's theatrical directing class he co-wrote "The Case of the Missing Zambesi" with Jeff Tarleton. Senior year he student directed Lawrence & Lee's "Jabberwock", about humorist James Thurber. Dave participated in Martin Walsh's Residential College Harlotry Players at the University of Michigan, performing Mariken Nijmegen" at the Toronto Festival of Early Drama. "Improv This" troupe was a joy. 2013 Dave played Sherriff Heck Tate in Paw Paw's "To Kill A Mockingbird".