Alumnus Profile: Mikah Conway
For Mikah Conway (BA ’20, Theatre), acting wasn’t always the plan. Growing up in the Reno-Tahoe area before moving to the Pacific Northwest, Conway participated in a variety of activities, but it wasn’t until high school that he discovered a passion for theatre. At Ingraham High School in North Seattle, a teacher encouraged him to audition for The Importance of Being Earnest. Conway landed the role of Algernon—and somewhere during rehearsals, he realized he had found what he wanted to do with his life.
His path to the University of Denver was almost equally unexpected. A self-described “deadly procrastinator,” Conway hadn’t initially considered DU until his mother came home one day with a free application from the university that she had started for him. He finished it, submitted it, and ultimately chose DU from among the schools where he was accepted.
“I’m so happy I did,” Conway says. “I met so many great people. I thought that our department was so wonderful. Our faculty are just such fantastic people that really focused on all of us.”
As a Theatre major, Conway valued the breadth of DU’s BA in Theatre program. Rather than focusing exclusively on acting, he gained experience in directing, stage crew, set construction and set design alongside his acting training. He auditioned regularly for productions and spent significant time working in the scene shop, building sets and developing a perspective on theatre that extended beyond his role as a performer.
“Even though I consider myself an actor, I very much have perspectives from more than just acting for the theatre-making art,” he says.
That holistic approach has continued to shape Conway’s career. He credits DU faculty members including Anne Penner, Greg Ungar and Steven McDonald with helping him develop professionally, as well as guest artist Sylvia Gregory, whose class introduced him to techniques he still uses today. Relationships with his professors also helped him connect with professional representation.
Conway graduated in 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic brought the performing arts industry to a halt. His original plan was to spend a year in Denver after graduation, building professional experience and saving money before moving to Los Angeles. With theatres closed and many projects postponed, he stayed in Denver an additional year.
His first professional stage production came in early 2022, appearing in The Sound Inside with Curious Theatre Company. It was an experience that felt like a turning point after the uncertainty of the pandemic. Now, several years later, Conway is returning to Curious for One of the Good Ones, playing Marcos in the contemporary play about cultural identity and family.
Since moving to Los Angeles in September 2022, Conway has been balancing auditions and acting work with a day job as a CT tech assistant at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He maintains representation in both Los Angeles and Denver and continues to audition for projects in both markets.
His recent screen work includes a guest-star role in the film Astrolatry, which screened at the Cannes Film Festival and is appearing at the Sitges Film Festival in Spain. He is also starring in the short film The Gray Area, which will make its way through the film festival circuit, and has worked as a producer on Hell is Other People, a four-part miniseries available on YouTube.
For Conway, building a career as an actor has meant persistence, versatility and a willingness to keep creating while waiting for the next opportunity.
“I’m not going to quit,” he says. “I have no plans of moving away from LA anytime soon. It’s certainly a great place to be pursuing this career.”
