Michael Speck (known as “Speck” to his friends) is a natural with comedy! It’s a little surprising, then, that he didn’t gravitate to theatre until high school. Being involved in theatre. Speck says, gave him energy he hadn’t had for other things. He was hooked. So much so that he went on to earn a BFA in Performance.
Then love intervened. Speck got married and moved to England. There he found it difficult to get cast as an immigrant, partly due to labor laws and partly due to the peculiarities of British dialects. Speck could do a fine “generic” British accent. But if the script called for a Manchester dialect, odds were good that someone who was actually from Manchester would get the part. Speck did have a stint on a British radio series that he calls the British Prairie Home Companion, but in general his theatre career languished.
Then love intervened again, this time in the opposite direction! Speck came back to the US a single man and settled in Dallas, where he had interned. He saw the Pegasus production of “Death Express!”, which motivated him to audition for Pegasus Theatre.
It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship! Speck has performed in or directed for all three productions in our Fresh Reads series, where he loves being part of the developmental process of a play. He also played a crazy king in “A Proper Man” by Steven Young, and he was a cross-dressing clown in “Clowning Around With Murder!”, part of the Living Black and White series. Speck loves the freedom he gets to channel “off the wall energy” into these roles, the opportunity to play as an actor.
In addition to his work at Pegasus, Speck has been involved in 28 productions at the Pocket Sandwich Theatre over a period of eight years. He is also cast as the title character in a web series called “Ronnie Redshirt”, about a group of Star Trek extras who have been displaced in time. Speck volunteers weekly at Children’s Hospital, he enjoys board games and comic books, and he has a particular talent for odd crafts such as making fully designed tabletops using bottle caps.
Speck approaches everything he does with a sense of play and an eagerness to try new things. We looking forward to many more opportunities for playtime with Speck in the coming years!