New to town but already jumping right into the arts in Telluride, Carlin Power is making waves. You might recognize him from this year's sold out Shakespeare in the Park on the Town Park stage.
Haven't met him yet? Well, luckily, he's filling in some of the blanks for us.
My name is Carlin Power and I am an actor/writer/producer. You might know me as Lysander in Shakespeare's Mid Summer Night's Dream. I came to Telluride because it is an amazing place filled with adventure and challenges that fulfill the soul and am staying because my heart is here.
Right now I’m working on writing a full length play about two brothers in a remote mining town at the height of the Colorado mining boom. You can see ithopefully early 2016. Also I'm involved in two upcoming films; The Devil Rode in On Horseback, and Oblivion Haunts. Both are slated to come out in the fall.
I’m most inspired by the truth.
My creative heros are Horowitz Haifetz, Bach, Mozart, Voltaire, Beethoven, Spencer, Keane, Terry, Duse, Danson, Brando, Dylan, Checkov, Shaw, Yeats, Joyce, O'Casey, Sinatra, Holiday, Armstrong, Franklin, James, Mingus, Baker, Basie, Jackson, Davis Jr, Cash, Orbison, Harris, Jennings, Presley, Big Pun, 2Pac, Macklemore ...the list goes on. I love them because they changed the game. Every single person listed above challenged the status quo and expressed art in a completely unique and personal way. They brought their truth to their art and gave the world insight into another experience expressing it beautifully.
If I invented a teleportation device it would be able to get me to the Cornerhouse on Wednesdays for a few sliders and I could bring them to my uncle in Australia without missing the latest episode of Mr. Robot (love that show).
The best piece of advice I’ve received is trust your instincts.
The worst is act out on those instincts.
In my spare time I travel, write, improv, hike/yawp run, duckie down that sharply cold San Miguel, you got to get on your bike and ride (you know what I mean?). My career path has been dual: for the past five years I've been in an apprenticeship with a master acting teaching circle in New York City learning how to act/write/direct while earning a living as an energy efficiency consultant in New York City. At night I went to gigs, class, and experienced all of what the city gave me and during the day I ended up taking over 6.5 Million kWh off the grid.
The things you most need to do my kind of work are have skill, will, and a thick skin. It irks me when people see something on youtube and think 'Oh I got this'. Try it in front of 500 people 8 times a week. We all know what the oldest profession in the world is; well, acting is the harshest. Almost all auditions are decent smelling meat markets and it is good to have belief in your skill because it gives you a thick skin.
The biggest lesson I’ve learned is where there is a will there is a way. Life is what you make it.
The best meal I’ve ever cooked was when my wife, two cats, and I were living on the fourth floor of landmark salmon pink castle in historic Harlem. We lived on St. Nicholas Ave in front and a large courtyard below us in the back. Oh it was lovely we had the door open to warm April night coming in from the porch. It was my wife's 29th birthday and I made this decadent Chilean Sea Bass drizzled in a balsamic reduction, baked asparagus, boiled potatoes, the whole nine yards. Well half way through the meal we started to wonder why there was a cat meowing in the courtyard below. It was a harrowing meow. We looked for our cats and we could only come up with one. The cat was so mad he couldn't have any sea bass he threw himself off the fourth floor porch. My neighbor on the second floor eating a bowl of spaghetti was so startled by the furry projectile his spaghetti ended up all over the couch he ended up donating to us. After a few frantic phone calls, we thanked our first floor neighbor for ordering the new deck chairs, for which the cardboard was never disposed of, and saved our cat's life. Our cat is incredible because he walked around like and old man for a week and then he was fine.
My life motto is know thyself and shave often.
One thing that frustrates me is when people are full of sh--. When I was little I wanted to play. I still do!!! I guess that's why I'm an actor.
One day I will hopefully be able to take my family out to dinner and look at the menu words and not numbers when ordering.