Tye Olson is a Minnesota-born actor, who came to San Francisco from Los Angeles to work on the film Watercolors. He lost track temporarily of the path he had set for himself when, at 21, he found he was HIV positive. But, resilient as he is, life took over in ways that he never planned. When he found a...

Actor and filmmaker Hunter Lee Hughes was a child with a grandma who drove him to and from auditions in her 1983 white Cadillac. She was his biggest fan. What a perfect start to a wonderful career in film. He was always very much at home on a movie set and says, “I loved the other kids, the make-up people and the creative energy....

Katherine Crawford, classic beauty, actor, model has a lot to say about her life and career that runs a path through devastating personal difficulty, physical pain, isolation and finally to freedom. Born in South Africa and cared for by a loving nursemaid rather than her mother, the cultural changes she faced were formidable. The American schools were without the structure...

When the Taliban took over, four-year-old Muadiq Bidar and his immediate family fled Afghanistan, making their way to a Pakistani refugee camp. For the next several years Musadiq spent 12 hours a day making rugs. No school. Not what a childhood should be. And yet, what his parents gave him was somehow exactly what a child should have. Late every evening,...

Robert Roman is a musician, a teacher, and sometimes an actor. He is a serious man who flows smoothly between laughter and woe, cultural insights and self-awareness. He observes musical trends and performers with an educated vigilance. Delightful, in a word. At 10 his parents tried to get him to play the piano because his sister did, but when the...

Jamie Ann Burke’s road to acting was an interestingly winding path through coding, electrical engineering, anthropology, religion and security technology. She loves learning. Despite her youthful shyness in public, she carries with her a definite glee, sense of humor and self-motivation that has held her in good stead. When she decided to pursue acting, she took a lot of classes and played...

Rabbi Peretz Mochkin takes on a riveting topic here in discussing what the soul is, where does it go after death and how long does it take to get to its final destination? Oh, and what is that final destination, anyway? Yes, body and soul, two separate things, one the house for the other. He defines the soul so...

Joshua Abramson loves you, yes, you, and says so on first meeting. No matter who you are. It is his personal “hello,” and he hopes to make it everyone’s. He likes to think what the effect would be for the President of the United States to begin the State of the Union address with, “I love you” and what...

Josh Wingate is an actor who has, step by step, evolved into the kind of man he wants to be, which is, ironically enough, just the kind of man he once thought he did not want to be. He originally came to lean on his tough guy self as a result of being picked on for being a Mama’s boy,...

On first sight, it is clear that actor Daamen Krall is having a very good time at life. He has a spark that precedes him into the room, and without even trying he shares his joy. From a family of Dutch immigrants, he was born in Los Angeles, lived his boyhood in South Central LA, moved with his family...