Donovan Holt would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. He did that—literally—one night when an actor had become sick during a rehearsal of an NU theater performance. He filled in because “the show must go on”, and even cleaned up the mess afterward. That is the humble human being and leader he is.
An award-winning student with a 3.61 GPA and recipient of the Department of Theatre’s Eugene Blackman Award for demonstrating outstanding professional promise, Donovan is dedicated to the theatre arts and university. He’s served on the Student Advisory Board for both the theatre department and CAMD, as the assistant and music director for NU Downbeats A Cappella, the diversity and inclusion director of Silver Masque, as a building supervisor for University Recreation, an actor, assistant director, and props director for various Department of Theatre productions, and a panelist for CAMD Admissions to help recruit students.
Donovan completed his first co-op at the Boston Ballet School, where he assisted in teaching third-grade public school students different styles of dance. The second was at the Huntington Theatre Company, where they extend his co-op for three additional months. It also led to a part-time job as an artistic associate for The Front Porch Arts Collective, Boston’s premiere black-centered theatre company in residence at the Huntington. He received his first professional theatre credits as an understudy in Ain’t Misbehavin’.
He considers his co-op at The Huntington and Front Porch to be his most significant achievement. “They have provided me with so many opportunities to learn and participate in new levels of theatre and build my network in the Boston theatre community.” Donovan can also be proud of receiving PEAK award funding to study the Frantic Method in London, a week-long training that teaches directors how to utilize this method in their own creative practices. In tandem with his co-music director at Downbeats, he brought the group up and out of the pandemic by building membership, organizing auditions, and callbacks and realizing a record-breaking number of auditions for the group.
“I hope to work as a freelance actor and director in the Boston area and beyond and further my expertise as an arts administrator to become a better artistic leader,” Donovan says.
Professor Melinda Lopez of the Department of Theatre says, Donovan is a person “who is always ready to pitch in and make things better. He is extraordinary. He is modest. He does what needs to be done without ego.”
