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Greg credits his foray into animation voice directing to a longtime interest in theatre. He acted in high school and college plays, though the majority of his experience was at the collegiate level. Once he found himself acting alongside people such as Andre Brauer (the star of Gideon's Crossing on ABC), Greg realized maybe he wasn't cut out to be a big-time actor. However, he very much enjoyed directing college productions and made sure to try his hand at all aspects of play production. Some things he liked doing, and others not so much.
When Greg moved to New York he left theatre behind entirely. Greg told me there's really no room for someone who wants to do theatre as a hobby in New York or Los Angeles because "community theatre in that sense doesn't exist because there are so many actors looking for some kind of showcase." Producing and directing a play for his Masters Degree was the only theatre work Greg did for years after returning to Los Angeles.
While a supervising producer on Gargoyles (see Part One) Greg began to attend the voice recording sessions. Greg describes these sessions as "the fun part of the process… on the whole," and a "compact moment of three hours all about the possibility." Problems may crop up later down the line in production, but at the voice recording, you get a sense of what can be. Of the caliber of voice actors he's worked with over the years, Greg says, "you can get… people, professional voice actors and others to work your stuff. Absolutely talented and they bring the words you've written to life." As a writer, he feels 7 out of 10 times voice actors bring words alive, maybe 1 out of 10 times it's better in your mind, but there's 2 times out of 10 where dialogue's improved.
Greg transitioned to voice directing while on Gargoyles. He sat in the sessions alongside Disney's voice director Jamie Thomason, whom he credits as "a better dialogue director than I'll ever be." Jamie gave Greg the opportunity to oversee a few "phone patch" (phoned in) sessions and eventually gave him the opportunity to voice direct an entire Gargoyles episode, "Vendettas." With its small cast, "all five actors made my first experience of directing a show myself a complete and total pleasure," though the final animated episode didn't turn out as well as he'd hoped.
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