The pair then promptly secured full representation at a London talent agency, Clarendon Management<\/a>, that has them both already lined up with UK acting, voiceover and film gigs.<\/p>\n Page<\/a>, 26, and Moon<\/a>, 27, agree that venturing a full continent away from their established Pittsburgh theater base constituted a profound leap of faith \u2014 not just in their own abilities but in finding a theatrical community willing to accept them.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI knew it would demand more of me than I\u2019d faced so far as an actor,\u201d says Page. \u201cBut I enthusiastically welcomed the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n Moon concurs. \u201cI have so many tools to flow from now,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Affiliated with University of West London, Drama Studio London was founded in 1966 and focuses on developing individual talent rather than teaching conventional acting styles. Alumni include Emily Watson, Forest Whitaker, Shobu Kapoor, Roma Downey, Pip Torrens and Charles Andre Martinet, the longtime voice of Mario in the Nintendo Super Mario franchise.<\/p>\n The curriculum is practical and wide-ranging:\u00a0intensive ensemble work, training in specialty character studies and a steady cycle of scene performances from contemporary plays and classic Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen and Restoration and Pantomime genres.<\/p>\n A CAPA High School graduate, Moon has appeared locally with Iron Horse Theatre and in film and TV roles in \u201cMindhunter,\u201d \u201cSpellbound,\u201d \u201cCalamity Care\u201d and \u201cSon of a Preacherman.\u201d<\/p>\n Page has performed with Damaskus Theater Collective, New Horizon Theater and Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre and starred with Moon in two Prime Stage Theatre productions, \u201cRosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott\u201d and \u201cWitness for the Prosecution.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n They shared insights from their time abroad with NEXTpittsburgh at YINZ Coffee on North Avenue, as they readied plans to return to London last fall.<\/p>\n *\u00a0 *\u00a0 *<\/p>\n NEXTpittsburgh:\u00a0 You were both already seasoned, in-demand actors in Pittsburgh. What gave you the idea to pursue acting studies in London?\u00a0<\/p>\n Nick Page: \u00a0My girlfriend was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Iceland. Which means she\u2019s going to be gone for nine months studying glaciers and volcanoes and such. So I started looking for one-year acting programs outside of Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n NEXTpittsburgh:\u00a0 In England, specifically?<\/p>\n Page:\u00a0 Specifically in England. Jake and I have had many discussions about how it seems the English take acting very seriously. As a learned thing and as a profession, right? I found out about Drama Studio London, applied and got in.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jake Moon:\u00a0 I heard about the program from Nick.\u00a0We were doing the Rosa Parks play at Prime Stage at the time, and we\u2019d had that discussion about theater outside America. When he got accepted to DSL, I said, \u201cGood luck, don\u2019t have any fun over there!\u201d And he said, \u201cNo, you should audition, too.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n NEXTpittsburgh:\u00a0 Seize the moment! What audition pieces did you use?\u00a0<\/p>\n Moon:\u00a0 My classical was \u201cFriends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears\u201d by Mark Antony from \u201cJulius Caesar.\u201d My contemporary was \u201cKilling Chuck\u201d from \u201cUnbearable Hotness\u201d by Gabriel Davis.<\/p>\n Page:\u00a0 For classical, I did Dionysus\u2019 opening monologue from \u201cThe Bacchae.\u201d For contemporary I did Steve from \u201cFat Cat Killers,\u201d his monologue about abducting his boss.\u00a0<\/p>\n NEXTpittsburgh:\u00a0 Were you the only Americans in your school?<\/p>\n Page:\u00a0 Yes. Our class was super international.\u00a0One of our housemates was from Turkey and another was from Spain.\u00a0<\/p>\n Moon:\u00a0 There was a lady from Greece, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n Page:\u00a0 Right, and actors from all over the British Isles. Twenty-six of us total.<\/p>\n NEXTpittsburgh:\u00a0 So, besides your classwork, you were getting exposed to a diversity of acting styles and perspectives from other students. And then the teachers brought their experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n Moon:\u00a0 The classes were all taught by industry professionals, people working in the industry. They told me in the audition:\u00a0Leave your life. Don\u2019t bring your life with you into the classroom. You\u2019re here to be professional. That\u2019s just what it is. You learn everything. You learn how to dance, you learn how to sing, you learn how to breathe. You learn how to crawl, walk, run.\u00a0<\/p>\n NEXTpittsburgh:\u00a0 Your acting instincts are broken down to the fundamentals.<\/p>\n Moon:\u00a0 You learn quickly what you don\u2019t know that you don\u2019t know. As you\u2019re learning all these things, your mind is opening up. What else is there that I don\u2019t know that I was unaware that I didn\u2019t know? How much of your body do you really need and for what purposes? You learn on your own, and you have to learn it quick.<\/p>\n NEXTpittsburgh:\u00a0 With your London training, have you come to think differently about what you do onstage?<\/p>\n Page:\u00a0 I\u2019ve been acting for over half my life. I started acting when I was 9 in an afterschool program and taking acting classes when I was 10. I knew I wanted to do it as a career when I was 11. The time in London forced me to\u00a0challenge myself, because just doing the first thing I thought of was not enough. Showing up in rehearsals and doing what the director tells you, that\u2019s fine, but at DSL they say, \u201cThat\u2019s okay, but we need a little bit more autonomy from you, buddy. We need you to do more. Come with more ideas.\u201d\u00a0 And I have a lot of ideas. What I learned was I had to express them more.\u00a0<\/p>\n NEXTpittsburgh:\u00a0 They\u2019re looking for more interaction between actor and director.<\/p>\n Page:\u00a0 In the rehearsal room they want you to be present. They want you to do all the usual things, be pliable, sure, but also take yourself a step further and provide ideas. The actor needs to bring something into the process beyond being a very good sponge. The director obviously has the final say as to whether they\u2019re going to implement your idea, but it\u2019s the thought that you bring something forth into the process. Just taking a second to say, \u201cHey, I have this idea. Can we try this?\u201d<\/p>\n NEXTpittsburgh:\u00a0 It expands your options within the role.<\/p>\n Page:\u00a0 I realized how much my performance changes whenever I\u2019m passionate about something in the character or the narrative, even slightly. The performance will change drastically.<\/p>\n Moon:\u00a0 I can echo the same sentiment. Caring is a big part of it, because if you don\u2019t care, that will show in your performance. The audience will not be fully connected with this guy on stage. He was performing it. He wasn\u2019t doing it, you know? That will show. Nick and I talk about a ceiling when you perform. What\u2019s your ceiling like? My ceiling goes higher when I care. You feel the audience trusts you, and you can\u2019t let them down.<\/p>\n My metamorphosis came when we did the Chekhov\/Ibsen block. What I thought acting was \u2014 it\u2019s not that. I\u2019m seeing now that it\u2019s actually this. The whole first term was about finding The Truth. That\u2019s what they nicknamed it. This is where you find The Truth. Doing Chekhov and Ibsen, it\u2019s a lot of realism, and you can\u2019t \u201cperform\u201d realism. People will know you\u2019re acting if you\u2019re trying to \u201cact\u201d real. You have to just be present in that character in this scenario. Even though it\u2019s imaginary, you\u2019re really embodying it.<\/p>\n NEXTpittsburgh:\u00a0 It\u2019s great that you both have London agents and actual jobs when you go back to England.<\/p>\n Page:\u00a0 For Christmas season, I got cast in a \u201cPolar Express\u201d immersive train ride that rolls across northern England. I play the conductor. My aspirations have always been simple. I want to be a professional actor whose only job is acting. Just be a great actor who makes people feel things and tell stories that mean a lot to me.\u00a0<\/p>\n Moon:\u00a0 You go through a lot figuring out how to be your best acting self, and I think I\u2019ve found a better way to do it.\u00a0In short, I\u2019ve learned how to not act but how to be. How to be an actor that embodies himself in all forms of the craft and does his best every time. It\u2019s not up to me for it to be seen as good or not. It\u2019s just up to me to do the work.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIf the opportunity presents itself, you go for it. Be open to anything, because you never know.\u201d That…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[52329,52330,73,13091,75,74,7866],"class_list":["post-109026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-best-actors-from-pittsburgh","tag-capa-theater","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-artists","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Drama-Studio-London-group.jpg\")
Top row from left, Jake Moon and Nick Page celebrate with their Drama Studio London graduating class. Photo courtesy of Drama Studio London.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Jake-Moon-as-Dr.-Martin-Luther-King-Jr.jpg\")
Jake Moon performs as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Prime Stage Theatre\u2019s \u201cRosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott\u201d with Nick Page at top right portraying civil rights leader E.D. Nixon. Photo courtesy of Laura Slovesko.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Nick-Page-in-Jekyll-Hyde.jpg\")
Nick Page appearing as Mr. Jekyll in \u201cDr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde\u201d at Drama Studio London. Photo courtesy of Stephanie Claire.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Nick-Page-as-Muddy-Waters.jpg\")
Flanked by Sam Lothard as Willie Dixon and Cole McGlumphy as Leonard Chess, Nick Page performs as legendary bluesman Muddy Waters in New Horizon Theater\u2019s \u201cBlues Is the Roots.\u201d Photo courtesy of New Horizon Theater.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Jake-Moon-in-The-Rover.jpg\")
Jake Moon, right, performs in the Restoration play \u201cThe Rover\u201d by Aphra Behn at Playground Theatre in London. Photo courtesy of Drama Studio London.<\/p>\n