Westward Bound

By Kiana Kox
for the Alestle

Allen Dorsey's childhood was not easy.

He was born in East St. Louis in the late '70s and lived there until he was in the second grade. Then his mother made a decision that would change his life. She decided to move out of state. Dorsey did not favor this decision.

"Life was hard. I had no family. They were all back in East St. Louis. I didn't enjoy being away from my family," Dorsey said.

The decision his mother made was done in Dorsey's best interest. She didn't feel that East St. Louis was a good place to raise her son, so they moved to Middletown, Conn.

"She had a friend who told her the schools were better there," Dorsey said. "She wanted to get me away from East St. Louis. She figured it would be a better environment for me to grow up in."

Despite the better school and environment, Dorsey still missed his family.

"I wasn't unhappy. I was happy being with my mom, but I didn't enjoy being away from my father," Dorsey said.

The change of environment, however, didn't change Dorsey's personality.

"I had always been a showoff - the class clown. I got put on punishment a lot for acting up in class," Dorsey said.

In his modern dance class, for example, Dorsey still shows traces of being that troublesome class clown. This includes adding sound effects to dance movements, mimicking video game characters and running up and down the corridors outside the dance studio.

"He is so crazy," dancer Cindy Willis said.

"I like to entertain people," Dorsey said.

He and his mother returned to East St. Louis while he was in the 10th grade. A year later he made the decision to pursue acting professionally.

"There was this guy at my school who was trying to get us to think about careers," Dorsey said. "He asked us what we would do if we could go it for free. I said, 'Act stupid.' He said, 'Why don't you become an actor?'"

Acting is what he has been doing ever since. Dorsey has been seen in the SIUE productions of Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's "You Can't Take It With You," Alan Jay Lerner's "Brigadoon" and the Student Experimental Theatre Organization's productions of "Simpatico" and "Continuous Left Turn Signal." He's done several productions with DV8 Entertainment and HotHouse Entertainment, professional theater companies in St. Louis.

He received high praise for playing the comedic role of Jeff in "Brigadoon."

"The director just wanted me to be me: a funny black guy with his friends," Dorsey said.

He received criticism when he played Bernard in HotHouse Entertainment's "Boys in the Band."

"The character was gay, and my family and friends didn't think that I portrayed it well," Dorsey said. "They said they could tell I was just acting."

With a resume full of productions and plenty of connections, Dorsey is literally taking his show on the road. Dorsey will be graduating in December with a bachelor's degree in theater performance. Next summer, Dorsey will be moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film.

"I got some recommendations for schools from some friends. I've done scenes with some people who have contacts in LA," Dorsey said.

Upon his arrival in Hollywood, he is going to move in with his sister and immediately begin taking acting classes and looking for an agent.