Steve Connell Biography

Steven Gerard Connell (born March 11, 1975 in Thousand Oaks, California) is an American actor, playwright, poet and spoken word artist.

Biography

Born in Thousand Oaks, California, Connell is the youngest of two children. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre.

Career

Connell burst onto the spoken word scene in Los Angeles, California. By 2003 he had won a number of national and regional slam championships in the United States, including the 2002 Hollywood Championship and the 2003 LA Championship. He was also the 2003 New Word Series Champion and, as captain of Team LA, won the 2003 National Poetry Championship. His skill as a poet and performer made him a sought-after spoken word artist in Los Angeles, making him a regular at Da Poetry Lounge, Fly Poets and other poetry venues in the United States. He also served as poet and creative director for two national spoken word tours, The Underground Poets Railroad and Norman Lear's Declare Yourself. As part of Declare Yourself he traveled across the United States in a campaign during the 2004 United States presidential elections to encourage young people to register to vote.

Theatre

In the theatre his one-man show "40 Days", received positive reviews from Pick of the Week from LA Weekly and Critic's Pick from Backstage West and was declared Best Solo Performance of 2005 by Entertainment Today.

Connell has also created works writing partner Sekou tha Misfit. They were invited by HBO to perform their play,No Easy Choice, at the 12th annual US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado. They were also commissioned by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to create a new performance piece which was unveiled at the annual ACLU Membership Conference and followed that with Unabridged, a series of recorded and filmed poems, described by the ACLU as "a new collection of poetry written especially for the ACLU that celebrates the power of words and captures the passion behind several of our current battles in the courtrooms and in Congress."

The Word Begins written and performed with Sekou tha Misfit, and directed by Robert Egan, was developed at the Ojai Playwrights Conference and had its world premiere at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, running from 2 October to 2 December 2007, where it received three Helen Hayes Award nominations, The Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play, Outstanding Resident Play Award and The Canadian Embassy Award for Outstanding Ensemble in a Resident Play.

A collection of his one-man acts and spoken word, Jumping the Median, is being produced by Norman Lear for a theatrical run in 2008. His work is also featured in theatre curriculum for University courses and he tours and performs at colleges, universities and schools across the United States. He is an outspoken political advocate, creating I Am An American and In Sheep's Clothing to speak out, and against, the violation of civil liberties in the United States.

Film and television

His work has been featured on various television shows including ABC World News, Good Morning America on ABC, Hardball on MSNBC, Def Poetry on HBO (twice), Crossover on Showtime, the World AIDS Festival on MTV, Lyric Café on B.E.T., as well as Oprah Winfrey's celebration of Maya Angelou's 75th birthday, Artisan Entertainment's Belly DVD and P Diddy's Annual "White Party". He has also performed at private events for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Connell has been featured in The Beat- a selection at The Sundance Film Festival, Dirty Sexy Money and the 2008 film Blues.

Trivia

Steve and actor Tom Lenk were both members of Tangent, an improv group.

Discography

Albums/EPs

• The Intimate Nature of Knife Fights (2001)

Filmography

• The Beat (2003)
• Shanghai Kiss (voice) (2007)
• The List (2007)
• Blues (2008)

Television

• Dirty Sexy Money (2008)