Today we’d like to introduce you to Jesse Tolbert.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Jesse. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Well, I like to act like I’m no one special. I think that’s my only talent, haha. But, if you want to know the truth, I’ve always been kind of a problem child. I was in METCO, when I was younger and then the Boston Public School system shortly after. I’m a creative a guy, I always have been, but at nine and ten I didn’t know much about anything enough to do something productive with it. So a lot of getting suspended and getting sent home or to the bench outside of the principal’s office or getting threatened to be expelled. So finally, my mom was like, ‘we’re going to either send you to boarding school or we’re going to put you in some theater classes.’ So we did the latter.
From there I’ve been in films, I’ve performed in Mainstage Theater productions; did a web series a while ago called ‘The Halls’ with Boston based production crew Beyond Measure Productions. Then, I decided it was time to tell me story. I’ve got an awful attention span, as you can probably already tell, so when I went to take the professional actor/showman track, I got bored pretty quickly. Some people would say I wasn’t good enough, and to that I say…. well, whatever, lol.
Writing has always come naturally to me. I auditioned for Boston Arts Academy in the 8th grade, and got into their Theater Department as a freshman – best years of my life. While there, I received a formal theater education that included production, technical theater, sound and light design, costume design, dance, voice, you name it. It was live, in every sense of the word. But writing was always my passion, and when given the opportunity to pursue a life track, I made it my mission to apply to Boston’s Emerson College as a Visual Media Arts major with a concentration in Writing for Film and TV.
Then, of course, my short attention span kicked in, and I realized I had no stories to tell. So I took a leave of absence, hit the road, did some traveling and some living and finished my first and original work, “The Tale of a Lonely Recluse.” That’s literally all I have going on right now, haha. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I’m very stubborn, and when I don’t want to do something I will go to some incredible lengths not to do it. Boston has always been very difficult for me too – I met some of the best people in my life at a very early age, and before we had time to grow and form memories together, we’d already outstayed our welcome in more ways than one.
I’ve got the run of the mill trust issues, bad attitude, finicky nature, and in my art all of that resolves itself. In the world as it is today, usually that just means trouble. I’m not the most clearly headed in relationships, either – now I’m just listing my problems, haha! But in all honestly, I can be shy sometimes, and abrasive other times, and that matters to people. When your career is based almost entirely on who you are, what you’re feeling, what you’re saying, what you’re doing and who you’re doing it with, more times out of none you’ve got to make some critical decisions about the way you spend that time. We only have so long on this earth, and if you want to get it right, you’ve got to get it right, am I right?
And then of course you want to make sure you’re having fun too, and I’m all about fun, probably more than anything else.
Please tell us about Jesse C. Tolbert.
So, essentially I am own business slash company. I write an article, I write a play, I write a screen play, I go through drafts and drafts, and get it to a place where it’s readable, and then the real work begins.
You have to option the work; you have to explain to complete strangers why they need this work – why they can’t live without this work. You can have to sell them on your life, on your memories, on your feelings – on the stupid things you said in a dire moment of incomparable stress and pressure, and you have to convince them that it was in all the better nature of things… which of course, is bogus, but it pays the bills.
Then, once everyone can get paid, you go into finding storytellers who can match your words and sentiment, sentence for sentence. This is tough, because a lot of directors and producers have a certain way of doing things, and more often than not, they are 100 percent more stubborn than you are. So you have to develop a flexible spine – you have to work with them and work around them, and trust them, and loathe them and give them what they need to create the work you know will sell once and continue to sell.
Then you host readings, and interviews, and match your own output again and again. Then you produce something to its fullest potential, spend tireless nights making sure that everything is perfect – forming lifelong relationships with people that you will only know for a matter of weeks, and then you await your verdict.
Sometimes your show is a hit, other times people walk out, completed confused. Or flustered .Or mad. An angry crowd at the end of a show is about as bad as it gets.
There is no time to apply logic, or ask for sound advice in the midst of all this. And after a while, you begin to love it. People give up their entire lives for the thrill of theater, of film of art. And that’s only because there’s a good reason for it. Because sometimes your show is a sure fire hit. That’s where the real work begins.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I grew up in the Fenway, which I can say in and of itself is my favorite memory of childhood, because Fenway is like a world apart. But subsequently, after childhood, or like growing up and moving to South End and creating new memories and being a little snot nosed brat, we’d always come back to Fenway, and chill, or hit a bar, or get food, or go shopping – wind up at the Charles, act ruckus. It’s like years and years and hundreds of memories, but it all boil down to a childhood I wouldn’t trade for anything. If you read my work, a lot of that is in there. It’s like prime Boston love. It’s incredible.
Contact Info:
- Website: hmuiaflourish.squarespace.com
- Email: unionavenue1@gmail.com
- Instagram: @jessetolbert1
Image Credit:
@iamseantoner, Los Angeles based artist extraordinaire
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