Daniel Greene

Author: Daniel Greene

  • My Experience in the Performing Arts

    The performing artist side of me

    Background

    I was born into a family that appreciated the arts, and I got an early start at singing. My first role was Jerome in South Pacific at Camp Saskatchewan in the Adirondack mountains of upstate New York when I was eight years old. When my family moved from New York to San Diego when I was ten, I was fortunate that the San Diego School of Creative & Performing Arts opened its doors only months later. I attended SCPA from sixth grade through high school graduation. From there, I went to UCLA to study Theatre Arts. I learned a lot about theater but wasn’t ready for college, I guess, so I worked in LA for a while before moving back to San Diego. Then I realized I wanted to learn ASL, so I went to Mesa College, lived with a deaf man, and in a couple of years I became an interpreter.

    ASL interpreting has been my day job since 1990, but I have continued to involve myself in the performing arts. I have performed in straight plays, musicals, operettas, and even opera. I have trained in voice acting (a.k.a. voiceover) and on-camera acting and have some voiceover and student film credits to my name, including one voiceover/camera commercial. I have studied singing under several singing teachers including Dianna Ruggiero, Stephen Crawford, and Dan Hooper. My most recent performing arts experience was singing in the opera chorus of Aïda with the Phoenix Opera in February 2009.

    When not performing on stage, I use my YouTube channels azsingersigner and danieljamesgreene as an outlet for singing and a do a lot of photography that I share on Flickr.

    Voiceover

    In 2003, I began an earnest study of voice acting with The Commercial Clinic in San Diego, CA. I have a Commercial, Corporate, and Audiobook voiceover demo. If you would like to hear it, please contact me.

    I first explored voiceover work when I played the title character in The Invisible Man radio drama at the San Diego School of Creative & Performing Arts when I was 11.

    Some of the voiceover jobs I have done include:

    • On-camera/voiceover 60-second promo spot for a Makeover Madness show on Community View
    • Gambler in a radio ad for Golden Acorn Casino
    • Ring Announcer in a soundtrack for a multi-media performance art piece called Chela
    • Reader of short stories, poems, and pronunciation drills for the companion CD to a textbook called Monthly Integrated Method ESL for a Mexican company called Advanced Methods Company
    • A radio ad to promote a play I was in with The Alternative Theatre Company on Energy Arizona FM

    One of my voiceover mentors, Penny Abshire, wrote a lovely testimonial of my work. Thanks, Penny!

  • Publishing on the Web for the Greater Good

    I found the following blog post while searching the Internet to see who was linking to my pages. The guy quoted below found the answers he was looking for in my post “Legal Requirements for Self Employed Persons.” I feel happy that publishing my research helped someone!

    Wednesday, June 14, 2006

    Its so nice when you search on Google and the exact (and somewhat obsure) thing you have been searching for comes up on the first page, giving you all the information you need and ending your worries. This has, fortunately, recently been the case in my search ofhow to work from home in San Diego and report one’s own taxes. As I searched for the requirements in California one of the first things that appeared was this highly instructive piece from Daniel Greene. It really is so great and makes me optomistic about our society that people actually bother to put this stuff up on the web, simply for the use of other people. They themselves benefit nothing from doing so but they help people like myself immensley.

    Posted by Dave Hunter at 7:37 PM

    Business School in Cyber Space
    Blogged with Flock

  • VI Anonymity Diminishes Interpreter-Client Relationship

    The differences between text relay and video relay are so vast; it amazes me how the FCC and, in turn, the VRS companies continue to treat VIs (Video Interpreters) like CAs (Communications Assistants; i.e. text relay operators). The effects of this treatment are sometimes unrecognized until something happens to remind an interpreter of what it’s like to feel like… well, like an “interpreter” again, rather than an “operator.”

    Recently, I took a break from my regular video relay interpreting job to interpret in a seminar for which I was requested by the client. The client and I had professional and social relationship that went way back. While on that job, I experienced emotions that I had long forgotten as a VI: the pride in being asked for by name and the joy of being wanted for who I am, not just for what I do.

    What is the point of anonymity when the deaf client can see you? At some point, they are bound to find out who you are; what’s more, if you are active in your profession, they should find out who you are! Sign language interpreters are professionals who bank their businesses on their professional reputations. They make a name for themselves by publishing, doing community service on the boards of interpreting organizations and governing agencies, teaching classes and workshops, mentoring new interpreters, and socializing within the deaf community. Text relay operators, or CA’s, do not need to do any of these professional activities, and they are literally invisible to their clients. It makes sense for them to be anonymous. It does not make sense for video interpreters, who are visible on television screens in people’s homes all over the country, to be nameless. Interpreters who follow the NAD–RID Code of Professional Conduct are never truly anonymous, as they are active and visible members of their communities.

    Anonymity robs from us what many of us have spent years to develop: (more…)

  • Singing with ABBA

    I sang in a children’s chorus with ABBA when they performed a concert at the San Diego Sports Arena in 1978. It was the Year of the Child, and they were getting children’s choruses to come up and sing “I Believe in Angels” with them in every concert they performed on their world tour. I met Björn, Benny, Frida, and Agnetha and had them sign the yellow T-shirt I wore. I got a used guitar string signed (on the square paper package) by one of the guitarists. Frida and Agnetha sang operatically during the warm-up / sound-check and I was amazed. Being at their concert was thrilling, although way too loud. Singing on stage with them was one of the greatest joys of my life. My mother said I was beaming the whole time. Years later, when I outgrew the t-shirt, I considered making a pillow of it but ended up throwing it out. Same with the guitar string. Imagine my surprise when I saw the movie Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and Guy Pierce’s character shows off a vial he wears around his neck containing the little “gift” Agnetha left him in the toilet! I thought, “Wow! This guy carries her poop around with him and I threw out the t-shirt she (and Frida and Benny and Björn) autographed?” Well, I do feel some regret for throwing out their autographed souvenirs, but who needs artifacts when no one can take away from you the thrill of actually meeting them and sharing the stage with them? I would much rather meet an artist, talk with them, laugh with them, perform with them, or shake their hand, than have an autograph or—gasp!—physical specimen of theirs to remember them by.

  • The arts are in my blood

    Okay, maybe I’m bragging a little, but I would like to tell you something about my family and their involvement in the performing and visual arts.

    • My grandmother on my mother’s side was a singer who performed in vaudeville. She toured the Orpheum circuit as Linda Preston with comedian Gene Sheldon. If you have an Orpheum theatre in your town, chances are she performed there! She was also a member of SAG under the name Audrey Arent, and she did a Mitchum deodorant commercial and appeared as an extra in the movies King Kong (1976), Network, and The Turning Point.
    • My grandfather on my mother’s side was Johnny Drake of The Modernaires– yes, Glenn Miller’s Modernaires who appeared in The Glenn Miller Story.
    • My grandmother on my father’s side, Helene Greene, was an interior designer and an award-winning painter.
    • My grandfather on my father’s side, Ernest Greene, played trumpet and harmonica in jazz bands as a young man.
    • My mother, Jonni Greene, sang in musicals throughout high school and junior college. She has sung in choruses of one form or another since I was 10.
    • My father, Andrew Greene, took some painting a sculpting courses and supported a friend in teaching and promoting her art classes.

    I am grateful to my family for passing down their tradition of performing and visual arts, and for encouraging me in my artistic endeavors.