Jordan T. Maxwell
| Jordan T. Maxwell | |
|---|---|
|
|
|
| Primary Theater | The Hideout Theatre |
| Years Active | 1998-Present |
Jordan T. Maxwell is an actor and director of both improvised and scripted works, as well as a writer, a massage therapist, and an ordained minister.
History
Jordan began studying improv as part of his theatre arts curriculum at Westwood High School, where he first worked with many of the performers who would one day make up Well Hung Jury. When Jeremy Lamb first formed the troupe, Jordan was busy performing in the school's production of The Sound of Music, but served as an alternate in their first two shows. He became a full fledged member the following year with the merging of Well Hung Jury and its sister troupe, The Freefalling Malefactors. He continued to perform with the Jury while studying theatre at The University of Texas at Austin until the troupe's demise in the fall of 2003. His involvement in improv tapered off after this as his focus shifted to scripted acting, writing, and directing, with occasional appearances in No Shame Theatre, Start Trekkin', The Great Mundane, and with his sketch troupe, The Sicks, as well as serving as a producer and the original Golf Czar for The Out of Bounds Comedy Festival.
After graduating from UT, Jordan made his first film appearances in the award winning The Rise and Fall of Booker Cox and Playing Chicken: The Movie, both written and directed by Bradley Jackson. Soon after, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. He studied improv (for the first time formally) and performed regularly at Ultimate Improv (now The Improv Space), first as a student and then as a company member with the house troupe, Veritas. Around this time, he was also recruited by fellow Austin improv expatriate Mike D'Alonzo to serve as Golf Shogun and producer of The Out of Bounds West Improv Festival. After the first year of the festival, Jordan and best friend/roommate/frequent collaborator Jeffrey Amos formed 710 Split and began to perform around Los Angeles (with the occasional show back home in Austin). While success in film and television were not in the cards, Jordan performed regularly onstage in plays and short musicals and in online content for Jib Jab and Wooden Nickel Shorts. He also worked as the Youth Program Director for the Secret Rose Theatre in North Hollywood.
In October 2010, Jordan gave up on Los Angeles and moved back to Austin where he quickly began performing again in shows like Pick Your Own Path, Austin Secrets, Showdown, Live Nude Improv, Spirited, and The 42-Hour Improv Marathon. He also directed Live TV Tuesdays: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, hosted the Fancy Pants Mash Up, performed briefly with ¡ZARZAMORA!, and started his improvised dystopian cabaret Indigo Shift with Kacey Samiee and Michael Brockman (replaced by Jeffrey Amos following Brockman's departure to Chicago).
In October of 2011, Jordan took a brief hiatus from Austin to film the Hulu original series Battleground, written and directed by his former Ultimate Improv coach J.D. Walsh, in Madison, Wisconsin. In 2012, he returned to Austin improv in Process, Rock, and Pocketful of Posies. In 2013, he was cast in Fandom and directed Strange Worlds, an improvised pulp hero anthology he first envisioned during his time in Los Angeles. He then directed Macbeth and played Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing leading up to the run of Fakespeare at The Hideout Theatre, and debuted his new troupe The Awkwards with Kacey Samiee and Aaron Saenz.
His written stage works include Icons: a pop fantasy and The Appointment. He has tried teaching improv, in Austin and Los Angeles, but isn't very good at it.
A post from him about the first improv show he ever saw:
Other than practicing improv as an exercise in high school theatre (as every other Westwood alum has put) and imported Whose Line on PBS and Comedy Central... first shows I ever saw were both, I believe, Monks sub-troupes at The Velveeta Room, and both because guys I was friends with in Westwood theatre were in them. The first was, I believe, Code Blue with Joplin and the second was Los Paranoias with the Bearded one. Never actually considered performing myself... then the end of my junior year, Jeremy decided to put a troupe together. I had to duck in and out of auditions as I was also rehearsing the spring musical, Sound of Music, wherein I played one Captain Georg Von Trapp. Understandably, I didn't quite make the cut. but they needed someone to get shot and spit blood all over the audience for the final scene in their debut show as Mad Ezekiel and the Oedipus Freaks... so I got drafted, watched the whole show, slipped a blood capsule in my mouth as the sketch started, stood up and tried to say my line as clearly as possible with a blood capsule slowly dissolving in my mouth, then ran as Jeremy pulled a fake gun on me, did a prat fall and spat fake blood on Jon Benner's dad as I fell.
The next show was in Jeremy's back yard. Aaron couldn't be there, so I filled in. It was the first time we went by Well Hung Jury. and it would take a few more years for Bill Stern to join and make us truly sweet. ;)
Troupes
Shows
- Austin Secrets
- Fakespeare
- Fandom
- I Love You So Much
- Live Nude Improv
- Live TV Tuesdays: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (director)
- Pocketful of Posies
- Process
- The Professor
- Rock
- Showdown
- Spirited
- Start Trekkin'
- Strange Worlds (director)
More Information
- Interview by Andrew Buck.
