Who’s Next

Posted by: CanvasCLE Categories: Artist Features

Cleveland is home to a thriving theater scene within and beyond the primary Playhouse Square district, extending to east- and west-side organizations putting on top-notch productions each season. At the heart of all successful plays are star actors who create special experiences for their audiences, in addition to those who work skillfully behind the scenes.

Northeast Ohio is home to a long list of rising actors who work hard in an industry that can be competitive and challenging to break into, but who continue to raise the bar for what local productions can be. As such, in this fall stage issue of Canvas, we highlight a few talented, skilled and dedicated actors, all associated with different area theater companies which shared their names as important ones to watch.

Chris Richards

Chris Richards may have been initiated into the world of acting when he saw Disney’s “Aladdin” on New Year’s Day in 1993. A child, he “thought Robin Williams as the Genie was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he says. “I was hooked.”

Leaving the movie stunned, when a family friend told him he could act, too, the wheels started turning.

A few decades later, he’s acted in numerous plays locally, in New York City and beyond, as well as in film and television.

“You do all the community theater and you find different reasons to love it and why you are in it, and you keep going,” he says. “For me, it’s been great. I love the whole aspect of being a storyteller and telling the stories.”

Avery Lamar Pope

Avery LaMar Pope’s theater roots date back to his days at Gearity Professional Development Elementary School in University Heights, performing in the risers with a choir for the high school’s musicals.

He continued doing musicals into middle school, and moved into performing in straight plays in addition to musicals in high school.

Now, Pope can be found performing on stage with a variety of local theaters and beyond, most recently in Cain Park’s production of “Hype Man” from July 12-21. He also performed in Karamu House productions “The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin” (2023) by Kirsten Childs and directed by Nina Domingue, and Langston Hughes’ “Black Nativity” (2023) directed by Tony F. Sias and Errin Weaver.

Madalyn Baker

Madalyn Baker’s journey as an actor has taken her from California to New York, to Cleveland and to Moscow.

Growing up in Pleasanton, Calif., Baker was obsessed with the arts and theater, she says. Her parents were both artsy, and they took her to art museums and shows such as “Stomp” and Shakespeare in the Park in San Francisco. She got her first role while enrolled in Shakespeare in the Park’s summer program in elementary school, where she played Valentine in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona.”

“I was very interested in imagination, like imagined worlds and playing pretend,” Baker says. “I really fell in love with theater as a way to explore that.”

Baker attended Amador Valley High School in her hometown, where she was in the marching band and drama program. She first wanted to attend Fordham University in the Bronx, N.Y., because a friend had gone there.

“I wanted to be in the place where theater was happening,” Baker says.