Auto-Biography Written in Third-Person

THE FOLLOWING IS BASED ON A TRUE STORY:

Jesse Powell-Stroud was born and raised in Chesterfield, Virginia. As a small child he developed a strange personality, sense of humor, and the inability to distinguish between reality and fantasy. He also had quite a predilection for drawing comic books and cartoons.

After catching the attention of other parents in a 5th grade musical, Jesse was forced to try out for the school play in 6th grade. Discovering he actually enjoyed getting on stage and making people laugh, the roles kept coming all the way through Middle School. He joined the Junior Honors Society, Junior Art Honors Society, Drama Club, and “Theatre with Children, For Children”, a touring theater troupe based at Virginia Commonwealth University. At Lloyd C. Bird High School he continued with roles in productions and became a card-carrying-member of the National Art Honors Society and National Thespian Society (and was disappointed it had nothing to do with… ahem… “sapphic studies”…)

In 2000, Jesse joined the international improv troupe, ComedySportz, at the age of 13 (despite the minimum age to join being 14. He lied.), and quickly became a regular player on the CSz Richmond field, performing in well over 1,000 shows with the company. He also served as a referee and “Mr. Voice” for the shows. Jesse continued at the Improv Theater with roles such as Chewbacca in the improvised musical parody “Star Warz: The Empire Rocks Back” and Vincent Vega in “Pop Fiction”.

Along with three other comedians, Jesse helped found Richmond Virginia’s first touring sketch comedy troupe, “PUNCH!”. The sketch comedy behemoth performed regularly at the CSzIT and had several shows in Fredericksburg, VA. and Rochester, NY. They also performed in the Washington D.C. Improv Festival, and in both 2005 and 2006 performed on the main stage at the Miami Improv Festival.

In 2009, Mr. P-S finally got himself together and moved to New York City to attend classes at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theatre.  He has studied under such luminaries as Neil Casey, Chelsea Clarke, Shannon O’Neill, and Betsey Stover.  He helped found an improv indie team named Mr. Gentleman.

For several years now Jesse has been preparing a comic book/ graphic novel to shop around to different publishers. His graphic design skills have been utilized for several different websites, including some of his own of course. He has been creating online comedy in different forms for many years now.

Jesse has weird carnival worker hands, can mimic sounds and voices, has pencil lead still stuck in his right hand from the third grade, and doesn’t eat vegetables.