I recently got an email from James Roberts, a Merlin Works Alumni from the early days at The Salvage Vanguard Theater. It was such good new– in fact, that was the subject line, “Good News!”– that I wanted to share.

Hi Shana. I have some good news I wanted to share. I’ve been cast on a Magnet Theater house team!  Our first show is tonight.

Auditions have gotten fairly competitive especially in the last year as the theater grows. There were plenty of extremely funny and talented people that got turned away.  This was actually my second attempt.

I’m extremely excited. The cast is made of people I know from the theater, plus one or two that I only know from watching them perform. And, as luck has it, my good friend Kate who came up through the ranks with me is the one other complete newbies on the team.

Anyhow, I feel like it’s fair game to brag about this kind of thing to your first improv teacher, right?  And in any case, I thought you might like to know what that slightly shy boy from your Spring 2005 Level 1 is up to these days.

I still wear my Merlin Works t-shirt around the theater on a regular basis. And every now and then I throw in a little Shana-ism when discussing scene work (I always cite, don’t worry).  I think of it as my secret weapon that I have this whole other bag of tricks that they don’t necessarily teach or do up here in New York.

I don’t think I would have stuck with it so long if my early experiences had not been so good, so I just wanted to say thank you for all your support and inspiration over the years. I couldn’t be happier with the outcome.

Hope all’s well with you and Jon and Sebastian!

I’m so proud of James and I know the Magnet and NYC are going to enjoy him immensely.