A bit
about me
about me
1. Detroit
The acting ‘bug’ bit me when I was thirteen years old. As a young performer, I realized early it would be challenging to wait around for someone to cast me in their production, so I wrote my own sketches and performed them myself at local theaters. I was quite successful, and people said – ‘Wow, that was fun, you should be a doctor!’ (I’ll be honest, my mother wanted me to be a doctor). I was accepted into three pre-med programs at different universities and chose the one that looked the easiest, which pretty much characterized my motivation. After the first day in pre-med, I switched my focus to theater. While working to pay for university, a pantomime group asked me to be their technician. They mentioned that they were going on a tour of the Netherlands for something called, ‘The Festival of Fools.’ So, at 20 years old, I hopped on a plane and never looked back.
2. On the road
I landed in Amsterdam, and it was amazing! The Festival of Fools was at the cutting edge of a new international comedy movement. In a short time, along with two members of the pantomime group and a fireman from Zaanstad, we started our own theater troupe. We called ourselves ‘Pigeon Drop’ and performed in clubs and theaters around the Netherlands. The group kept expanding and metamorphosed into a very popular seven-man musical comedy troupe. For the next 13 years’ Pigeon Drop Comedy Company’ performed close to 1500 shows on stages and screens all over Europe and the USA. It was exhilarating and exhausting!
After Pigeon Drop disbanded, I joined forces with Steve Stewart to form the comedy duo ‘Stewart and Ross’. We toured extensively throughout Europe for the next 5 years. I also performed solo on stage and film and began working as a model. I was lucky to corner the modeling market as the young-executive-who-doesn’t-take-himself-too-seriously.
3. Amsterdam
My home base has always been Amsterdam. After close to twenty years on the road, I was eager to use my creative mind doing something close to home. For the next 15 years I produced and directed animation films for the commercial, educational and cultural sector, winning many awards along the way including a ‘Golden Calf’ (the Dutch Oscar) for best short film in 2004. Since 2005 I have honed my skills as a training actor and program designer for corporate L & D programs. In 2015 I founded INCorporate Actors and Trainers. I also co-own International Native Casting (INCasting).
Throughout all of these various enterprises and activities, I have continued acting professionally, broadening my comedy repertoire to include more serious and varied dramatic roles, such as a key character on a season of the crime series ‘Flikken Maastricht’, and a supporting role as a Canadian mounted policeman in the feature film ‘Alberta.’
Lee M. Ross