The Elizabethans believed that the star one is born under dictates one’s destiny. You can be born under a good sign, stars portending glory and triumph. Or you can be born under a bad sign, cursed to carry it from birth, doomed by your own stars. We are all born under bad signs, doomed to carry something. Whether it be disability, mental illness, intergenerational trauma, gender identity, addiction, culture, socioeconomic standing - we are all defined, sometimes doomed, by things outside our control.

It is from this place that Emerson excavates character. What does a character consider their bad sign? In what ways do characters resign themselves to the stories others have told about them? In what ways do characters succumb or triumph over them? Emerson’s ethos as an artist is to transmute darkness into light, pain into joy, despair into hope. In watching a character wrestle with their story, we can learn to liberate ourselves from our own.

With a specialized approach drawing from his time at New York’s premiere Stanislavski based acting studios (NYU The MSNR Studio, The Atlantic Acting School, The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, The Stella Adler Studio of Acting) Emerson engages character with fearless non-judgmental curiosity and compassion.