Beginnings
Dan grew up with a mother who worked in education with talents in visual art, cello, and pantomime and a father who’s a world-traveling anthropologist professor. With parents like these, he naturally developed an interest in the arts and communities outside of his own.

Born in NYC, and growing up in South Carolina and Texas, Dan traveled around a bit. Though living and going to elementary school in Conakry, Guinea (West Africa) was a pivotal moment in Dan’s life that opened him up to everything and sparked his ongoing curiosity. His parents gave him the independence and freedom to explore on his own, and this in no small part makes up who he is today.

Dan took his first acting class at a community theatre at age 11, and this is when he found his calling. His passion for theatre led him to attend a specialized performing arts high school, summer theatre programs, and graduate from SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts. After college Dan worked as an actor and started teaching acting.

Artistic Director of a non-profit theatre company, 2002-2013
At 18 years old, Dan founded The Back Porch Players Theatre Company with a group of friends from the performing arts high school. The company got its start performing on the back porch of Dans family’s home but after a few summers, the company grew to perform in Houston’s premier theatre venues including Stages Repertory, Main Street Theater and Houston Ballet’s Center for Dance. The Back Porch company produced a number of productions which included Brighton Beach Memoirs, Waiting for Lefty, Moonchildren, Balm In Gilead, Jewtopia, God & Death, In the Blood, Election Day, and Tea and Sympathy. They worked with outstanding directors such as David Rainey, Ann C. James, Robert Ellerman and Jo Alessandro Marks, and received Houston Press Theatre Awards and acclaim from local and regional newspaper publications.

Writing & Producing TV/Film, 2014-Present

Dan enrolled at CUNY’s NYC College of Technology and Brooklyn College in 2014 for their video production program where he spent three semesters immersed in every aspect of film production from writing, filming, editing, and producing.

Since completing the program, Dan has made a series of short documentaries about mentorships, disappearing communities, political/social divides, and cultural art forms.

Dan’s film, Kaavya, has been selected for numerous international film festivals in 2022, aired on PBS stations in Texas 2023, and is being distributed across the United States to PBS stations in 2024.

An educational non-profit, 2014-present
Combining his love of teaching and his penchant for producing, Dan launched a non-profit organization to make arts education accessible to all kids through digital media. www.gordoneducation.org

His nonprofit has numerous film programs which include:

• Take the Stage, a bilingual (English/Spanish) educational series on PBS LearningMedia for elementary grades. Take the Stage’s first episode aired on PBS in Houston in 2015, and subsequent videos were filmed the following years. This interactive digital series is free and used widely by educators across the country to teach curriculum through the arts.

• Filmmaking workshops for grades 3-12 taught by professional filmmakers. These 10-week workshops bring the magic of filmmaking to schools and camps where students take part in filming and acting in their original screenplays.

• Filmmaking workshops as an intervention strategy for teenagers in the juvenile justice system. Teenagers who participate discover a positive creative outlet to express themselves and find their voice. These juvenile justice programs have been featured on NPR.

• Special projects which include documentaries, music videos, and social impact media.

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Cover photo by Jonathan Myers