Guest Announcement Irene Bedard

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Irene Bedard is a Native American actor, director, producer and advocate.  She was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska and is the daughter of Bruce Bedard and Carol Otton and the granddaughter of David and Irene Otton from the village of Koyuk.  She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Theater from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.  After university, she moved to New York City and was a founding member of the Native American Theater Ensemble, Chuka Lokoli.  She has performed on stages including Circle in the Square, Ensemble Studio Theater, Cleveland Playhouse, and the prestigious Joseph Papp Public Theater

Soon after, she began a career in film and television and has over 100 credits including Lakota Woman for which she was nominated a Golden Globe, Grand Ave produced by Robert Redford, Into The West a Steven Spielberg miniseries, the cult classic Smoke Signals, the voice of Disney’s Pocahontas, which she has most recently reprised in Wreck it Ralph 2. She can currently be seen in the Netflix Original series Longmire, Stephen King’s series The Mist for Spike TV, the 444th President of the United States in the Ava Duvernay directed Jay Z Beyonce collaboration, and HBO’s Westworld.  Irene has received much critical acclaim for her performances and garnered numerous Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress awards from such organizations as the Emmy’s, The First Americans In The Arts, American Indian Film Festival, NAMIC VISION AWARDS, Diversity Awards, LA Film Festival, and Sundance Audience Award.

Irene is very honored to be inducted into the 2018 class of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Irene has been honored as an inductee into the Museum of Western Heritage and was the first Native American woman to be inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame, hasreceived honorary degrees from Sitting Bull College and the Institute of the American Indian Arts, and the Alumni Award of Excellence from the University of the Arts. She has been Artist in Residence at Vox Box Arts Collective 501(c)(3) in Los Angeles for 20 years. Has co-chaired the Native American Collection of the Art Train and the American Indian College Funds Flame of Hope Gala. 

Irene has made appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Tyra Banks Show, BillMaher, and The Roseanne Barr Show. She has been photographed by Annie Leibovitz and has been featured in Mademoiselle, USA Today, Native Peoples, and was chosen as one of People Magazines 50 Most Beautiful People.  She was a guest at the White House Correspondents Dinner during Bill Clinton’s administration.

She currently serves on the American Indian Enterprise and Business Council Board as the Delegate to the White House and U.N., as well as the Special Consul to the U.N.  for the Cities of Peace and the World Indigenous Forum where she is currently working to form a Peace Treaty based on the Values formulated by Standing Rock. She served on the Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists National Diversity Committee, and also served on the National Task Force in support of VAWA for the National Congress of the American Indians, personally delivering 180,000 signatures to Sentaro Baynor’s office during her  attendance of  the NIWRC (National Indian Women’s Resource Center) field hearings throughout the United States. 

More recently, Irene is honored and humbled to be named Artist in Residence at Perseverance Theater, to follow with her mission and vision statement: To Heal through the Power and Art of Storytelling.   She continues working on Grace…And, in the face of hatred, bigotry and outright lies…..

E Pluribus Unum.  Out of Many, One.  Or as the Lakota say…. Mitakuye Oyasin……We are all Related.

Guest Announcement Bill Farmer

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Disney Legend Bill Farmer is an American voice actor and comedian, who is known for his role of being the current voice of the Disney character Goofy since 1987. He is also the current voice of Pluto and Horace Horsecollar. Farmer’s first job, at the age of 15, involved doing voices, especially those of Western stars like John Wayne or Walter Brennan. He and his friends would sometimes go through fast food drive-thrus and order foods in his character voices. Bill attended the University of Kansas, and is a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity. In college, he found work in radio and TV and then moved on to stand-up comedy as an impressionist until he moved out to Hollywood, where he began voicing Goofy in January 1987. In 1982, while he was still doing stand-up comedy, Farmer worked at a comedy club called the Comedy Corner in Dallas, Texas. He continued to work there until his move to Hollywood in 1986. His decision to move to California came from a Dallas commercial agent who suggested that, given his talent for voices, he should try his luck in California. He was recently married, but he and his wife talked it over and came to an arrangement. She stayed back in Dallas while he commuted for a year after he got an apartment. Then four months after his moving out to Hollywood, his agent asked him if he could do any Disney characters. In 1987, he had a small part as reporter Justin Ballard-Watkins in the film RoboCop. Farmer’s very first voice over audition was for Goofy. When he auditioned for the voice, he studied the way the original actor Pinto Colvig performed as Goofy in the classic cartoons. He studied the hilarious laugh and the distinctive “gawrsh”. He inherited the voice of Goofy (and also Pluto) around the same time Tony Anselmo inherited Donald Duck and Wayne Allwine and Russi Taylor did likewise for Mickey and Minnie Mouse, respectively. He originated the voice of Horace Horsecollar in Disney’s version of The Prince and the Pauper and has played him ever since as well. Farmer also performed additional voices on The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse (1987) and Astro Boy (2004). Other significant characters he has played include Yosemite Sam, Sylvester and Foghorn Leghorn in the movie Space Jam (1996). He has also done several guest voices, both on TV, including The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy and in video games, including the Destroy All Humans! series, Namco’s Tales of Symphonia, where he voiced Governor-General Dorr, in Square Enix’s Kingdom Hearts series reprising the role of Goofy, Detective Date in the SEGA game Yakuza, Captain Wedgewood and Frill Lizard in Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, many voices on EverQuest II, Cletus Samson, Floyd Sanders, Jeff Meyers and Ryan LaRosa in the video game Dead Rising and Sam and others in the cult classic adventure game Sam & Max Hit the Road. Farmer has also played Secret Squirrel on Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law in both the animated series and its spin-off video game, Stinkie in Casper: A Spirited Beginning and Casper Meets Wendy, Willie Bear in Horton Hears a Who! and Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck in Robot Chicken. As of 2014, he played Doc, the leader of the title characters in Disney’s animated television series The 7D. He also voiced Blackhoof Boar Clan Leader in the 2008 video game Kung Fu Panda Recently, Bill lent his voice to the character Hop Pop on the Disney Series Amphibia.ChatGPT

Bill Farmer is indeed a well-known American voice actor and comedian, best recognized for his portrayal of Goofy, Pluto, and Horace Horsecollar in Disney productions. Here’s a summary of his career and achievements:

Guest Announcement Daniel Ross

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Daniel Ross is an Emmy Award-Winning Actor and one of the most in-demand Voice Artists working in the industry today. His voice has been featured on almost every network but most notably, he is the voice of Donald Duck in the smash hit series “Mickey and the Roadster Racers” and “Mickey Mouse: Mixed-Up Adventures, on Disney Junior. He was also featured as the lead-villain #Starscream in 2007’s “Transformers: The Game”, and has voiced the lovable Lucky from the “Lucky Charms Cereal” commercials! You can also hear him in the shows “The Tom and Jerry Show”, “Tom and Jerry in New York”, and “Mickey Mouse: Funhouse”!

Along with credits in Videogames like “World of Warcraft: Shadowlands”, “Diablo Immortal”, and recently “Multiversus” as the lovable #Gizmo and villainous Stripe from “Gremlins”, as well as Uncle Shagworthy from “Scooby Doo”.

Daniel can be heard in the Oscar Winning juggernaut, “Joker”, and in the 2022 McDonald’s Superbowl commercial as Grimace’s Thoughts.

Daniel repeated his performance as #Grimace to celebrate Grimace’s birthday! As a result of the campaign, a massive TikTok trend took to the masses showing what happens when you drink the infamous Grimace Birthday Shake. Named the “Grimace Shake Incident of 2023” and covered by news outlets like CNN and MSNBC.