Welcome

Amanda Rhodes Bio~

Amanda Rhodes is an American theater, on-camera, and voice-over actress. Born in Hampton, Virginia, moved to many locations growing up due to her parent's work. She has always been excited by human behavior and could mimic many characters on television, which led to her passions about the craft of acting as an adult. She continued her education in theater and choir, with the opportunity, she sang at the San Francisco City Hall at the age of eleven. Throughout her early life and through constant moves, she still maintained theater, dance, and the ambitiousness for it. She has consistently had a loving human nature with the ability for compassion, but also her insatiable curiosity of the human condition. Married in 2010 to Samuel Rhodes. They have two children together. After taking a break to raise the kids, she challenged head first back into the craft. Brushing up by starting back into dance at (2013) ]Colorado School of Dance and performance at the PACE center in Parker. Her husband surprised her by signing her up for a theater class. She took Intro in Theater at the Denver Performing Arts Center. This began her 12 year plus journey into understanding the arts, not only from a business perspective, but from an appreciation and dedication for the work. She is in love with the theater, on-camera, and is falling head over heels for the Voice Over field. Today, she will take The Art of Movement: Low-Flying Trapeze for as long as possible, going on 10 years and deepening understanding in the Skinner Releasing Technique. This has grounded so much of her work, while allowing her to fly to new heights.

Moving, Shaking, and Learning

Yogi, Dancer, Trapeze Artist and More

Dedicated to the Art of Movement I began my journey like most. A rambunctious kid dancing around to my favorite son C+C Music Factory - Sweat/Everybody Dance Now. We had hardwood floors which made it slippery and fun to jam, slip, and slide. This child flame was ignited and my relationship with movement stoked that fire.

Yoga- Vinyasa, Hatha, Ashtanga. In varying amounts I have studied and practiced each of these for almost a decade. Most and preferable to my shape, taste, and needs I practiced Vinyasa. The way the body is engaged, the focus of flow, the grace, and releasing moving moment to moment.

Dance- This has been a love/fumble relationship. Since I was 5 I have taken some form of dance classes. Lyrical, Ballroom, Swing, and Tap are ones I feel most strongly in. I am currently working in ballet of which I have been dabbling in since 5 years old.

Low-Flying Trapeze- Releasing and breath of life. The art of low-flying trapeze is like an adventure that is ever going and beautiful. When I heard trapeze, thoughts that came to my mind were strong, athletic, built, endurance, pumping iron. These visuals of people so unlike myself because I couldn’t do pull-ups, I was not ripped, my overall health with Auto-immune diseases seemed like an uphill battle even attempting such a feat. It was not, and continues to be something that heals my body. I decided out of excitement and curiosity to try. The first class we briskly touched the trapezes. The teacher guided us through understanding and communicating with our dance partner, the trapeze. Each class we would work on suppleness, grace, unfurling, moving through the space, awareness and motivated movement releasing into parts that shouldn’t hold tension. Little things would come to mind outside of class like why am I holding my jaw tight? Why are my shoulders so high? It was like learning how to communicate with your body fully for the first time.

Time of My Life by Alan Ayckbourn Directed by Ian Gerber (photo by: Ian Gerber)

This was my first major performance as an adult.

Auditioning: People say you need talent to perform. Some artist truly believe you need that “Spark” that extra something or you can never be an actor/actress. I don’t believe this for even a second. All talent is, is willingness to learn and the ability to appreciate what you are good at. I have a nack for seeing what works. I got to go last to audition, which was way to my benefit. I could mimic everything that worked and heighten it. Drop anything that didn’t and bam I was lead. This is not always the case, but it did give me a great sense of myself. Working with a director unknown to me, and learning what does and doesn’t work. Now, after having directed and seeing things from both ends, I love the art of people and how we all bring our colors to the canvas.

Process: Lines, Lines, Lines. The sooner you are off book the easier it is to play. This is huge, with a huge caveat. If you learn your lines rigidly there is no room to grow. Learning lines in different settings, with different action words applied, etc. will allow you to act on your feet. I say this because like dance or anything, being able to be mailable and change becomes so important and trusting the director to help guide those decisions can be both extremely satisfying and/or frustrating. True art isn’t a single person, its the beauty that comes from collaboration.

Production: Blocking, settling, living. To breath into each moment with space. Live theatre, every moment, every run, every decision is different night to night. That is the beauty of live theatre. We do our best to be consistent, but it makes a huge difference when you can act on your toes and are settled enough to be able to get the show back on the tracks. This show was such a beautiful production and learning experience when a chair fell, or my purse wasn’t where it was suppose to be. The whole show beautiful from every actor and all working together to share such an interesting and fun story.

Savage in Limbo by John Patrick Shanley Directed by Allison Watrous (photo by: Christine Ann Allen)

Denver Center for the Performing Arts offers new actors, seasoned actors, young and old a place to breath, play and learn. They produce student plays, which are fully fleshed and performed to the community for free. These allow the actors to work with well known directors, to go through the acting process, and to build community.

Savage in Limbo was one of the more challenging pieces I have performed walking the line of April, a broken yet beautiful soul. The intricacies of relationships and how healthy or toxic they can be, which I can say of many plays by John Patrick Shanley.

At 27 years old at the time they accepted me into their school, as they will accept most. My first class I was so nervous, everyday coming home to husband and kids reeling in excitement about everything I learned about my passion and so happy, just for the next week to have me be so socially anxious I didn’t want to go back. My ever persevering husband reminding me of all the things I came home telling him, so I would, almost pulling teeth, go and loved it once more. As these classes became habit, my passion grew with it. I have currently at age 35 taken 52 going on 53 classes at Denver Center.

If you love the arts there are so many different classes from camera, to make up, to voice over, and business. This community was build to lift one another up. Are there going to be teachers or people you don’t like? Is there people who are unfair? Yeah, I think that is anywhere you go in life, but there are also amazing humans, messy humans, learning everything there is about being human. That is what I find the most beautiful.

Please consider donating to either Denver Center for the Performing Arts, or The Denver Actors Fund. These help tons of amazing humans bring our community information, growth, and create a powerful outlet for all the voices that want to be heard. I love that they care not only for our kids, but also for anyone willing to learn and grow.