Casey Brown has some interesting things in the back of his Jeep. Like wigs, jammer pants and patent leather go-go boots.
“Hey, a guy’s got to make a living,” Brown, 17, jokes when asked about the boots.
In truth, the junior at Flathead High School is always ready to put on a show.
From “Hamlet” to “High School Musical,” Brown has been entertaining Flathead Valley crowds since elementary school, acting in more than 40 productions over the last eight years. This spring, he’ll graduate a year early and head to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles in the fall for the college’s Resident Honors Program.
Each year, USC accepts between 20 and 30 high school juniors who are willing to trade their senior year of high school classes for an early jump on their freshman year of college courses. The students often represent the best and brightest from high schools across the country, with backgrounds in honors programs, leadership experience and special talents.
Brown’s already tracked down some of his future classmates through the social networking site Facebook. Their majors range from neurology, psychology and astrophysics to engineering and music composition. Brown, who plans to pursue a professional acting career, is the only theater major among them.
“I keep thinking it’s a mistake on their part,” Brown said, noting that he got official notice of his acceptance on Friday, March 13.
Directors and theatergoers throughout the valley would assure him it’s not.
“Casey is one of the most talented kids I know,” Brach Thomson, manager at Bigfork Summer Playhouse and director of the children’s theater program there, said. “He’s mature beyond his years.”
Brown’s passion for acting started young.
At age seven, he said he started sneaking out of his room to watch the late-night sketch comedy Saturday Night Live, fascinated by the costumes, talent and production. In third grade, he wrote mini-scripts instead of daily events in his journal. When it came time for everyone to share, he’d act out his scenes before the class.
“I think my teacher was the only one who got it,” he said. “The other kids were probably so confused, but as long as I made the teacher laugh I thought it was cool.”
When the Bigfork Summer Playhouse launched its children’s theatre program in 2001, Brown found a more natural home to hone his talents.
A self-described “kind of shy, fat kid,” he was cast in awkward roles at first – a dog and then a silent clown – but slowly began assuming larger parts, including the wizard in “The Wizard of Oz” and Harold Hill in the “Music Man Jr.”
“I wouldn’t be where I am without the children’s theater,” Brown said. “Brach and the theater instilled such a passion and love and excitement for acting.”
After completing his freshman year at Bigfork High School, Brown transferred to Flathead to take advantage of the school’s theater program and compete on the speech and debate team. This year, as further proof of his acting range, he won the state title in both humorous oral interpretation and serious oral interpretation.
Two years ago, Brown was looking to expand into another theater company. He had gotten to know Alpine Theatre Project director Betsi Morrison several years ago, when they worked together at the Bigfork Playhouse as part of the children’s theater, so it seemed appropriate to work with Morrison again.
The switch has only added to Brown’s opportunities, offering him tutelage under more first-class Broadway directors and actors, most notably Olympia Dukakis.
When Dukakis premiered her show “Another Side of the Island,” an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” at ATP last fall, Brown was assigned as her practice partner. For two months, he spent at least two hours a day reciting lines with the Acadamy-Award-winning actress.
“The experience I got from that was unlike anything,” Brown said. “She is so kind and generous and truly brilliant, really brilliant. Since then the way I approach a part definitely changed.”
The “Shakespeare boot camp” with Dukakis also proved the perfect prep work for Brown’s next part: playing the lead role in Flathead High’s production of “Hamlet.”
In all, even Brown is amazed at the opportunities he’s had to develop his acting talents while growing up in Northwest Montana. This summer, he’ll return to the Bigfork Summer Playhouse as an intern before heading off to California.
“I wouldn’t have found what I love and what I want to do without all of these people,” he said. “I consider myself lucky to have grown up in a place that has offered all this.”