David Boldt

In my senior year at Cornell, I performed in three plays including Man and Superman starring Jimmy Smits as Jack Tanner. During the run of the Shaw play my director and Chair of the MFA program took me to lunch and offered me a place in the program for the upcoming fall. But I took my life in a different direction and packed myself off to Southern Seminary. During my time in Louisville I was ordained, pastored a church, performed three weddings and two funerals (all of whom are still married or dead) and got my Master of Divinity. But I still wanted to pursue acting so I packed myself off to NJ (to save up money to move to NY). I got a job as a jail guard and the nickname "Officer Dave" . In NYC, I studied with Michael Howard and did every Off and Off-Off Broadway play I could. To support my acting addiction, I was the maître d' at Mortimer's where my regulars included Brooke Astor, Henry Kissinger, and Jackie O. I then opened my own cocktail lounge on the UES where I made the best Cosmos on the planet while listening to Frank Sinatra. I got married, sold the bar, became a NYC Teaching Fellow, taught fifth grade in Bed Stuy, had a daughter, and got my master's in education. I ended my career as the President of a small nursing school. Now my daughter is heading off to Cornell in the fall, I am retired, and my time has come. I am ready.