My name is Dean Davis and I’m a business project leader in delivery and retail modernization at USPS headquarters in Washington, DC.
In my downtime, I can be found performing on stage. It’s the excitement of singing for people and the audience’s response and reaction that I love so much.
I’m currently playing the title role in the musical “Jekyll and Hyde,” a Just Off Broadway community theater production in Baltimore. The show runs for two weekends with six performances during October.
I’m originally from Cedar Rapids, IA, where my love of singing began. After high school, I joined the U.S. Marine Corps. I served for six years, and my last tour was at Fort Meade in Maryland, which is how I ended up staying in the Washington, DC, area. I was hired by the Postal Service in 1994 as a letter carrier before moving to retail associate and supervisory positions.
I was first cast in a show in 1999. It was the musical “Big River,” and I have been in more than 100 shows since. I primarily perform in local community theater productions and Toby’s Dinner Theater in Columbia, MD.
I have to take great care of my vocal cords because this is a huge singing part — there are 26 musical numbers in “Jekyll and Hyde,” and I’m in at least 19 of them.
My voice coach is Shouvik Mondle, who starred in the European tour of “Phantom of the Opera.”
He has been helping me work on my vocal transition as Dr. Jekyll has a proper, lighter voice but Mr. Hyde has a deep, gravelly voice, which is really hard on the vocal cords. I’m trying to come up with a happy medium to preserve my throat and keep this up.
I’m grateful for his help and that of my wife, Tanya Davis, who is a professional actor. She has been offering some really good acting tips and she’s my biggest fan.
“Off the Clock,” a column on Postal Service employees and their after-hours pursuits, appears regularly in Link.
