Patrick McCray(I)

A native of Louisville, Kentucky, Patrick was lucky enough to grow up just a few blocks from Louisville's last, great, neighborhood movie palace, the Vogue Theater, one of the most celebrated repertory film theaters in the region. There, he worked throughout high school as usher, a job that legend suggests was earlier held by Louisvillian Ned Beatty at the very same theater. Schooled in film and theater history and theory by Carl Wohlschlegel, Patrick considered a number of careers ranging from meteorology to law enforcement. In 1990, he moved to San Diego to study playwriting, and by May of 1992, saw the public performance of his first play, Wigwam!, as well as several issues of his internationally published comic book miniseries, Elvis Shrugged, for Revolutionary Comics -- a company for which he also served as editor. Elvis Shrugged would go on to become a cult favorite as a graphic novel, winning praise from newspapers across the country, and inspiring fan mail that Patrick still receives to this day. At the same time, under the wing of Production Designer John Iacovelli, Patrick gained the opportunity to work as a design assistant on the pilot for the hit TV series, Bablyon 5, and then later served as art department buyer for the beginning of that show's sophomore season. In 1994, he left Babylon 5 to enter the MFA directing program at LSU, where he had the opportunity to study under Barry Kyle, lifetime Associate Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company of London and Stratford, as well as John Dennis, who served for eight years as the Artistic Director of the Resident Ensemble of the Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles. Moonlighting as a film critic for a British web site, Patrick's comments on Duck Soup would later be cited by Roger Ebert in his column and book, The Great Movies. A drama coach in Knoxville, Tennessee, Patrick is now a director of over thirty plays, has been a professional Shakespearean actor, and his voice work in radio commercials has been heard throughout the Midwest.