Life As An Entertainer: 'This Is What I Know How To Do'

Wenatchee actor and director Matthew Pippin’s life rotates around two major non-competing forces: a love of family and a love of performance.

- Susan Lagsdin

His devotion to both gives him an intense sense of purpose.

Though he’s 35, he admits, “I don’t make a very good grownup,” referring to his benign disregard for real-world concerns like taxes, investments, insurance, mortgage, utilities… the to-do stuff that bogs down many of us. “But, (aptly quoting Angela Lansbury in a favorite movie, The Poseidon Adventure) “THIS is what I know how to do.”

Matthew headed straight out of town after Eastmont High School graduation, all the way from The Apple Capital to The Big Apple. He remembers being dazzled by his first distant view of the city’s towers. “I couldn’t wait to be in it — and then I learned that it is sooo huge… you just have to walk one block and you are somewhere else totally different.”

Studying at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy and living in Harlem gave him a lifelong love of the thrilling diversity it offers. He said, “I miss New York City every day of my life.”

It was there, after his dad and sister dropped him off with their good wishes in 2001, that he discovered another family, fellow actors who called themselves the 511’s. Their dorm hangout room in the Stratford Arms Hotel was #511, and 16 years later they still celebrate May 11 as their special holiday. They’ve attended each other’s weddings — his and husband Phat’s was on the Riverside Theater stage — and are still in constant contact.