Adrian
Walter
Creative Director
P.O. Box 270507
Houston, TX 77277
(832)715-7588
mail@adrianwalter.com
Adrian Walter has been performing, directing and teaching professionally for the past 17 years, and currently teaches theatre and performing arts for the Harris County Department of Education in Houston, Texas. Adrian has taught everything from fencing, stage combat and movement to acting and improvisation for The Alley Theatre, Express Theatre, Main Street Theatre , the Houston School of Film and Theatre (formerly Mercury Studios), Somos
Todos Grupo del Teatro, and his fight choreography has been seen on many stages in the Greater Houston area including the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts and The Jewish Community Center. His theatre education programs have won $50,000 in grant money for the 2006-7 school year in order to bring a production-based play with student performers working with professional directors, audio/video professionals, and costume designers through his company, Off-the-Grid Productions.
In July 2005, Adrian conceived and directed a dance performance fusion piece called Sati for Dance Houston at the Hobby Center for the performing arts. The creative direction behind it was to incorporate traditional Northern Indian dance story (Kathakali) with original music played live on bagpipes and Middle Eastern percussion. The spiritual meaning and taboo of Sati was presented in a surreal setting surrounded by saris, smoke and a glowing bellows-driven machine that housed the live musicians in a disembodied blacklight world upstage of the dance.
Adrian served as Production Manager for Orchestra X, a professional Union Orchestra for over two seasons managing such masterpieces from floor to ceiling as Beethoven's Symphonies Nos. 5 & 9, Mahler's Symphony No. 4 (in which he assembled the multi-media video presentation footage highlighting the history of The Cold War between America and the former United Soviet Socialist Republic), Puccini's Madame Butterfly, Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte, Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Samuel Barber's Addagio for Strings, Michael Dougherty's Metropolis Symphony (which also featured Award-Winning Cellist Derek Menchan's original arrangement Standard Shifts), and Leonard Bernstein's Serenade. Adrian also served as Assistant Technical Director for DiverseWorks Artspace, Stage Manager for Dance Houston at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, co-founder of Loch Dhu Dancers, and Dancerdown Productions, Inc., his own 501©(3) Non-Profit.
He has performed in numerous productions in Houston including Trapped In Bagland, Inherit the Wind and Macbeth at the Alley Theatre, The Cocoanuts and Jeffrey at Stages Repertory Theatre, subUrbia and The Sum of Us at Theatre LaB Houston, "The Talking Man," Solo Dancer, Sword Dancer and Morris Dancer for Revels Houston Jean Laffite at the Maison Rouge at Galveston's Strand Theatre, and Much Ado About Nothing and Romeo and Juliet for the Houston Shakespeare Festival, as well as a handful of commercials for both television and radio and a couple industrial films.
For professional children’s theatre Adrian has toured with Express Theatre for five seasons, performing in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice which toured to Beijing, China on an international theatre exchange between Express Theatre and the Children’s Theatre of Beijing; Star Child, The Monkey King, Robin Hood and both productions honoring African American history: African Delight and From Africa With Love. Adrian had the pleasure of directing African Delight for its 2001 tour, reprised his role as director in 2002 and 2003 and 2005 under Kuumba House Productions. For EarlyStages at Stages Repertory Theatre Adrian has been seen in Commedia Pinocchio, Land of the Dragon, Miranda, Magic Theatre II, Commedia Princess & the Pea and as Teddy in Rudyard Kipling's Rikki Tikki Tavi.
Prior to devoting his energies strictly to The Loch Dhu Dancers and his band Tartanic at the Texas Renaissance Festival, Adrian held the role of Robin Hood from 1994-2000. Since joining the Texas Renaissance Festival’s Core Company of performers and teachers in 1992, he has had the opportunity to truly hone not only his improvisational skills but teach workshops and classes to the performance company regarding character, improvisation, scriptwriting and acting for "environmental" or "interactive" theatre. TRF afforded Adrian further training and experience in period dancing (from 15 th and 16th Centuries), fight choreography and performance. From 1995-2000 he was the playwright, director, fight director and principle in the Robin Hood Stage Show in The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, All Is War In Love At Faire, The Stinky Sheriff of Nottingham and Sherwood Smackdown.
Adrian was trained at the University of Houston School of Theatre. Besides a liberal theatre education of acting by the late founder of the Circle in the Square Theatre in New York, José Quintero (for which he is commemorated by the José Quintero Theatre on West 42nd Street), directing, Shakespeare, voice, and stagecraft, he was trained in mime and stage combat by the latef Claude Caux (a former Fencing Coach for the South African Olympic Team and student of Marcel Marceau), Chuck Hudson (also of the Marcel Marceau Mime School in Paris), and Brian Byrnes, a certified instructor and director with the Society for American Fight Directors (SAFD).
Adrian is the booking contact, drummer, dancer, and frontman for Tartanic. His percussion skills have taken him to playing the Middle Eastern doumbek at Rice University for their Intermediate Midddle Eastern Dance II Class with professor Kristona Kousadis, M.F.A.. If you let him—he’ll pick up guitars and pennywhitles—but heavy medication has aided greatly to quell this urge. After guest-playing with the likes of Emuzeki, Poor Man’s Fortune, The Rogues, Godfrey’s Rangers, The Medicine Show, E.J. Jones, and Richard Kean ; Adrian decided to take up a project of his own, and the band plays on. . . .
Behind the behind the scenes-- Adrian enjoys spending precious time with his family, travel, his pets,and plans to make many more waves with new projects which are always in the works.
