30 under 30: Lindewood Drama Student Performs Shakespeare in the Park

Joshua Nash Payne, 22, will be a fifth-year senior at in the fall. He is working on a double major in dramaturgy (a major he created at Lindenwood) and theater, and a minor in creative writing. Outside of school, Nash works as an arts camp counselor at the Jewish Community Center. 

Nash is also participating in this year's Shakespeare in the Park in St. Charles, acting as the leading role of Claudio in Shakespeare's comedy Much Ado About Nothing.

St. Charles Patch: Where are you originally from?

Joshua Nash Payne: Kansas City, MO.

St. Charles Patch: Why did you move to St. Charles?

Joshua Nash Payne: To go to Lindenwood. They offered me a really big scholarship, so I figured I could basically go to school for free. Originally I was headed to Chicago, but Lindenwood kind of threw a wrench into the situation. The drama facilities there are top of the line.

St. Charles Patch: Tell me about Shakespeare in the Park.

Joshua Nash Payne: The play is Much Ado About Nothing, by William Shakespeare. It's being produced by Riverside Shakespeare, and I think this is their fifth year down in Frontier Park. It's a nice location, there are a lot of trees around where they set up the stage. They work off of donations from private patrons as well as the arts council of St. Charles. So it's free admission.

This year's production, we're trying to go with the timeless theme: the costumes are influenced by different points of history, they're really cool costumes. The direction isn't strictly period, it's not like the academic Shakespeare where all the verses have to be perfect, but it's pretty close to that. The director, Suki Peters, is a purist for Shakespeare. She's a fantastic director, and she's at the helm of all of this. She's brought in a composer to do original music for it and a choreographer for some dances that we do at the end of the show. She's brought in all kinds of specialists.

Shakespeare's comedies are really complex. People are always fooling each other and trying to get one another to fall in love. That's basically what happens. My character, Claudio, comes to Messina, which is where the play takes place. They had just returned from a war, and Claudio is in love with this girl named Hero, but the brother of Claudio's commanding officer tricks Claudio into believing that Hero is cheating on him. So he shames her at the wedding they're supposed to have. Then Claudio is tricked into believing that Hero died from him being so mean to her and he feels really bad and chaos ensues. It's really heartfelt. It's my favorite Shakespeare comedy. There's a lot of heart in the show.

This year I'm really excited, because there seems to be a lot more hype about Shakespeare in the Park in St. Charles.

St. Charles Patch: How did you get involved with Shakespeare in the Park this year?

Joshua Nash Payne: The director, Suki, sent me an email and asked me to audition. So I went to the auditions and there were a lot of people, they were down at the . I read for a bunch of different characters and Suki brought me in for a lineup, which is where they compare two characters together. They had the girl who is playing Hero come in and all the people that were auditioning for Claudio to see who would make a cute couple. Then I got a phone call a week later asking me if I wanted to play Claudio.

St. Charles Patch: How long have you been interested in acting?

Joshua Nash Payne: It will be 10 years. I started at the end of sixth grade, when I was 11.

St. Charles Patch: Was there a certain moment when you knew you wanted to pursue acting?

Joshua Nash Payne: The first show I was actually in was an award show for my middle school. They had dancing and singing and acting while they were giving out awards to kids. I was an actor in the show, and I had a monologue about a boy who is afraid to get in front of his math class and write things on the board. There was a part in it about farting, and when I got to that point and I made the entire school laughing, I just though, "This is cool! I want to do this for a while." Getting people to laugh.

St. Charles Patch: What do you like about acting?

Joshua Nash Payne: It's a really good release. Sometimes I feel really pent up inside of myself, and when you get to play someone else, especially someone dramatic like Claudio, it's a nice release outside of yourself.

St. Charles Patch: Outside of acting, what else do you like to do?

Joshua Nash Payne: I like to play tennis. I like to ride my bike, a lot. I like cooking. I like to go to concerts a lot, get my groove on. I like listening to music, I play the drums. I really like to travel and go on road trips. Anything a youth likes to do, basically.

St. Charles Patch: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Joshua Nash Payne: Whoa! That's a big question. Right now, I really do like to travel. This next year is sort of going to determine the trajectory of the rest of my life, whether or not next summer I go on a trip to Asia, which is one possibility. Or spend four months hiking the Appalachian Trail. If that doesn't happen because the acting thing takes off, which can be a love/hate relationship sometimes. As far as after school and after traveling, I'll probably go out to Los Angeles and hopefully kick-start a career in either TV or movies. TV is where the money is at, but movies are where people see you as a movie star. It sounds kind of ridiculous to say I want to be a movie star, but I want to be a movie star.