What does Hairspray, Charlotte’s Web, Shrek, and Peter Pan all have in common? South’s very own actor, Ethan Davenport.

Davenport, a sophomore, began his acting career at age nine in the show The Skid Row Kids Save Christmas. “It was a director original… it was a real jam,” Davenport commented, grimacing at the memory of his first show.

As a kid, you’re not going to take yourself out and audition for a show, kid actors usually have a mentor/motivator, encouraging them.  For Davenport, it was his mom.  “She got me to audition for a community theater show and it all went out from there…,” he explained.

With a sister and brother acting and dancing around town, Davenport is not the only family member who belongs on stage.  “My brother is taking classes at Children’s Theater and my sister did some community theater and she’s taking dance,” Davenport explained.

Davenport has an impressive resume- beginning with A Christmas Carol at the Guthrie, going through shows on the Show Boat, at Stages and the History Theater, and ending with many shows at the beloved Children’s Theater where he is currently in Peter Pan, playing one of the Lost Boys.

“The first show I did was like ‘well this is easy’ but it was also really terrible,” Davenport said.  Apparently acting classes are helpful to stop “acting” and start acting.  According to Davenport, “its easy to ‘act’ but whats really hard is to not think about that you’re acting on stage and to just relax into the character because whenever you’re thinking about ‘oh I have to set this prop here,’ you’re not acting.”
On his way out, Davenport said: “School is stressful, and life in general is just ahg and then you go on stage and you don’t think about it at all. You’re in a different world.”