Originally published on December 23, 2019.
At the age of six, Chadwick Taylor was introduced to theater via roles in elementary school and community productions. At Utah’s American Fork High School, the pursuit became his passion and is ultimately what brought him to Southern Utah University. And today, he is a high school drama teacher in Washington State where he also works as a freelance theater and film director.
Chadwick teaches at Kentwood High School in Kent, Washington, located in the heart of the Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area, and does it all when it comes to theater instruction. His teaching portfolio includes all of the school’s drama classes, plus theater tech classes and musical theater, and management of a performing arts center.
He credits SUU for allowing him to direct his first musical and play (an opportunity he says he would never have had at a larger institution) and teaching him the importance of asking questions and challenging the status quo.
“At SUU I learned if there was something I wanted, to go get it,” he says. “I was encouraged to ask questions and was always taught to ask ‘why.’”
SUU Theatre provided Chadwick with a vast network of familial connections that remain an important network for him today. SUU alumni Andrew & Jan Hunsaker, Josh Stavros, Marcie Hastings, Shaun Boyle, Dani Grigsby, Josh Richardson, Wendy & TJ Penrod, and Melissa Singleton, among many others, have all become his theater family.
The University, he says, also prepared him to work hard, set goals, and pound the pavement until he reached those goals.
“I learned to trust myself and my intuition,” he says. “I learned to tell a story at SUU; in the theater and film industry, story is everything.”
He recently worked with five-time Tony winner Susan Stroman on a new musical at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre called Marie, Dancing Still, where he served as the child production manager and an assistant on the show. The musical stars Tiler Peck, a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, and Terrence Mann, who starred on Broadway as Javert in Les Miserables.
“To be in the room and just watch how a Broadway musical is put together is something I will never forget,” he says.
Chadwick resides in Seattle and enjoys travel, reading, movies, and the theater (of course), as well as hiking, camping, and boating.
Learn more about SUU’s Theatre program.
