Literary Ashland with Jackie Apodaca

Our May 2018 guest was Jackie Apodaca. She is a professor of theatre at Southern Oregon University. She has worked as an actor, director, and producer in theatre, film, and media, with companies such as the Roundabout, Denver Center, National Geographic, filmscience, Modern Media (head of production), Venice Theatre Works (associate artistic director), Shakespeare Santa Barbara (producing director), and Ashland New Plays Festival (associate artistic director). Jackie earned an MFA from the National Theatre Conservatory, under the guidance of RSC founding member, Tony Church.

For nearly a decade, Jackie Apodaca and Michael Kostroff shared duties as advice columnists for the actors’ trade paper, Backstage. Their highly popular weekly feature, “The Working Actor,” fielded questions from actors all over the country. A cross between “Dear Abby” and The Hollywood Reporter, their column was a fact-based, humorous, compassionate take on the questions actors most wanted answered. Using some of their most interesting, entertaining, and informative columns as launch points, their new book Answers from “The Working Actor” guides readers through the ins and outs (and ups and downs) of the acting industry.