Brandon Bogenschutz Finds His Calling in Acting

Brandon Bogenschutz. Photo by Cole Witter.

It’s fair to say that 10 years ago, Brandon Bogenschutz never would have imagined graduating from college with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting.

Though the Egg Harbor native’s imagination was larger than life, his reserved nature as a child kept him out of the limelight. But when a group of friends convinced him to join a forensics playacting group to perform a short skit of Aesop’s Fables, he gave it a try.

“Before then I didn’t have any afterschool activities that I was really committed to or really passionate about but the bug bit me and it felt good to have a community around me and some kind of purpose outside of school,” the 22-year-old Bogenschutz recalled. “…It was an outlet to get out that energy and that creativity in a way that was also beneficial to other people, contributing to an ensemble and a play.”

The ensuing years would see that energy and creativity applied to two productions on the Door Community Auditorium stage, 2011’s Almost, Maine and 2012’s Anything Goes. By his junior year at Gibraltar High School, he had set his sights on a career on the stage.

From the beginning, Bogenschutz has believed that “art is one constant endeavor of finding new perspectives.” In a way, pursuing acting was his way of changing perspectives on the viability of his career choice.

“Because people say, ‘Well, what are you going to do with that?’” he said. “But at the same time, you go and get a degree for anything else, what are you going to do with that? People get degrees all the time that they don’t actually use. Then people get degrees that they apply in different ways. If you can get the training, if you have a good idea of how you need to personally conduct yourself, and if you’re willing to put yourself out there in more ways than one, I think you can have a successful acting career just like anyone can have success in any other kind of career.”

During the past four years, Bogenschutz has undergone intensive training through the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point Department of Theatre and Dance, where he started with the fundamentals and built up his skills in dance, movement, voice and acting. He went into the program with an Outstanding Incoming Freshman in Acting Scholarship and before graduating in May 2016, was named a semifinalist in the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Region III Irene Ryan Scholarship Competition.

The years between were filled with auditions and performances, including his most challenging role as Konstantin in The Seagull: Rehearsed, an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s 1896 comedy The Seagull. He also played Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a groom in Big Love, and roles in columbinus.

He also honed his behind-the-scenes production chops, overseeing this year’s UW-Stevens Point Players Student Artistic Alliance’s Fringe Festival and this summer, serving as production assistant for the inaugural Door Kinetic Arts Festival in June.

This Thunder. Image by Anya Kopischke.

Bogenschutz will put all of these skills on display this weekend with the premiere of his one-man play, This Thunder, which he wrote in the final weeks of his time at UW-Stevens Point.

The story centers on a man in the wake of loss who experiences the lives of eight young men from different walks of life whom he could have been – an Iraq War veteran from Kentucky, an English shipwright at the turn of the century, an Australian boy dreaming of what the future will be like in the 1920s.

“I’ve seen people do these one-person plays of them doing different characters, but I wanted to surround that with more of a narrative. Can I, in the story, make a reason why one man is turning into all these people? That’s where the idea came from,” he explained. “Returning from loss, your mind wanders and from there I thought, sometimes people really wish they were someone else. What if you got to experience that?”

While Bogenschutz wrote and stars in the one-man show, the production crew includes a handful of artistically minded Door County graduates, including Anya Kopischke, Logan Thomas, Evan Board and Shelby Kahr.

Together, Bogenschutz hopes the crew and play will give audiences an appreciation for various forms of theater.

“We have some great and really consistent theaters [in Door County],” he said. “… But have we had something that’s a little more ground-up, sort of a ragtag product that we’re putting forth that we have to refine ourselves? I think that’s how it provides something new. It’s maybe a little more on the fringe side but I think that’s only going to help the arts community here in diversifying.”

This Thunder will be Bogenschutz’s first post-college project and from here, he will continue pursuing opportunities to enhance his onstage and behind-the-scenes skills before heading east to the Big Apple.

“I’m going to keep working and in all likelihood, going to New York City within the next six months. I’ll give myself that window. If not New York, maybe somewhere out west. Decisions,” he laughed. “Early career artists need to keep themselves open to what that next job is going to be. I can’t say I’m going to audition all the time in New York and that’ll be it. On the side, you have to be, ‘I’m going to do standup, I’m going to keep writing, if someone wants me to direct something with them then I’m going to do that.’ It’s not the easiest with scheduling things and whatever the day job is, that’s going to be hard for a while but you have to keep yourself open. That’s only going to enrich your perspective.”

This Thunder will be performed at 7:30pm on Aug. 20, 21 and 22 at Crescent Studios, 9331 Spring Road (at the Top of the Hill Shops) Unit B-24 in Fish Creek.