“These People Saw in Me What I Did Not See in Myself”: Dan White ’95 Draws on Lessons Learned at HRA across Decades-Long Acting Career

For Hampton Roads Academy alumnus and seasoned actor Dan White ’95, nothing compares to the joy of telling a story and witnessing the joy it brings audiences to receive it.

“It’s exciting,” he said. “It’s ethereal, even. It’s transcendent.”

After more than three decades of experiencing this magic as a performer on stage, on screen, and in voiceover studios, White still attributes his deep love of his craft to a series of formative experiences during his time as a student at HRA.

Through the encouragement of his peers and especially his teachers, who recognized his potential before he was aware of it himself, White discovered talents that have defined the trajectory of his life since graduation. More importantly, he learned to embrace the work of painstakingly honing his technique, which has made him successful across multiple media—film, television, video games, commercials, stand-up comedy, and live theatre. And he remains committed to giving back to the Navigator community, especially in the performing arts, the bedrock on which he has built a thriving career.

“I Just Couldn’t Stop Doing It”

White’s first-ever audition led to his earliest foray into professional acting at the age of twelve, appearing in the Christian Broadcasting Network sitcom Big Brother Jake with Jake Steinfeld. Around the same time, he starred in his first play in the sixth grade at Thomas Eaton Middle School in Hampton.

He did not perform for an audience again, however, until he joined HRA in ninth grade. As a freshman Navigator, he returned to the stage—and put on a thick Chicago accent—for a recreation of Saturday Night Live’s classic “Da Bears” sketch in a program known as “Comedy Works,” directed by science and drama teacher Ken Cecire. When he heard the audience laugh, he recalled, he caught an acting bug that he would never shake.

In that year’s spring play, Me and My Girl, he landed the largest role open to a freshman as a backflipping butler with a vocal solo. It was not until tenth grade, though, that White believes he truly found his voice as a performer.

When Upper School English teacher Connie Holmes introduced him to the forensics team and poetry interpretation, he said, she cemented her place as “the most influential person in my life at HRA, whose actions and love and encouragement truly changed the course of my life.” Holmes, whom White still calls his “second mom,” assigned him Gwendolyn Brooks’ “The Life of Lincoln West,” telling the story of a black boy who celebrates his uniqueness in the face of ridicule. As a young African American struggling to fit in at a new school and navigating the racial dynamics of an era when Virginia still observed Lee-Jackson-King Day in place of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, White connected to this poem on a profound level.

Performing this work, he became the first student in HRA history to place in poetry interpretation. This was the start of a string of victories that catapulted him to the Tournament of Champions, where he became the first Navigator ever to win the top prize.

White’s success in forensics gave him the confidence to approach then-Head of School Evan Peterson about organizing a Martin Luther King Jr. Day assembly in January 1993, where he delivered an excerpt from the historic “I Have a Dream” speech. The performance received universal praise, but no feedback meant more to White than the comments of two teachers who came up to him after the assembly. Upper School French teacher Elaine McDermott left a lasting impression with her support, her encouragement, and her validation of the sophomore’s courage in spearheading the event and standing up in front of the whole school. Math Department head Ann Fichter, meanwhile, left him floored when she told him, “I was at the March on Washington. If I had closed my eyes, I would’ve thought it was Martin Luther King.”

Practicing King’s speech, White said, was the first time that preparing for a performance “didn’t feel like work. I just couldn’t stop doing it. If I was sitting idle, I wanted to work on that speech.” Performing was no longer just an extracurricular activity. It had become his passion.

Breaking Out as a Performer

It was not long before White’s triumphs as a student performer led to a return to professional acting, as he was cast in his first movie on CBN during his sophomore year.

Still, White remembers an experience on stage at HRA as the defining acting role of his high school years. In twelfth grade, he was playing varsity football when Assistant Coach Mike Oehmann invited him to audition for the musical Little Shop of Horrors, which he would direct that spring. Oehmann cast White immediately. As he prepared for a challenging role, the young thespian soon became well acquainted with Middle and Upper School choral director Robin Steinberger. Spotting White’s potential as a singer as well as an actor, Steinberger gave him a meaningful vote of confidence in a moment of self-doubt.

Reflecting on the role that educators like Steinberger, Oehmann, McDermott, Fichter, and Holmes played in his growth as a performer, White said, “These people saw in me what I did not see in myself. And when I listened, I went somewhere.”

“That’s what I love so much about HRA,” he added—”the encouragement, the community.” Without his dedicated teachers’ support, he explained, he would not have discovered so many of his talents, nor would he have had the courage to pursue them.

And pursue them he did. After being recruited to play Division I football at William & Mary, White transferred to Jackson State University, where he majored in mass communications and continued performing as the host of a radio show and lead anchor for a local cable news program. Minoring in theatre and participating in plays in his senior year, however, made him discover that acting, not broadcasting, was the path for him.

White promptly pivoted from mass communications job fairs to drama school auditions. To his delight, he was accepted to his top-choice, UCLA, with a scholarship. But when the California Institute of the Arts called offering him a full ride, he could not turn down the opportunity.

In 2003, shortly after White graduated from CalArts with an MFA in acting, a couple of producer friends approached him with an intriguing offer. Familiar with a hybrid impression of Isaac Hayes and Barry White that he had first developed while working on a humorous interpretation piece for forensics at HRA, the producers asked him to revive this voice for the theme song and narration of a pilot for MTV called Pimp My Ride. The show was a hit. “Thank you, Connie Holmes!” White said.

Feast, Famine, and Gratitude

After leaving Pimp My Ride and enduring a string of unsuccessful auditions, White booked a role in 2005’s Barbershop: The Series. With his face on magazine covers and billboards from Times Square to Sunset Boulevard, this part catapulted him to a level of visibility he had never known before, allowing him to land a movie and a 50 Cent music video.

Then, White recalled, came “seven years of almost getting it” in film and television. In the interim, he continued working steadily in voice acting, stand-up, and theatre—including an Off-Broadway reimagining of Pulp Fiction (1994) entitled Pulp Shakespeare, wherein he took on Samuel L. Jackson’s iconic role and experienced “the most fun I’ve had on stage.” Nevertheless, he realized that he still had much to learn about on-camera technique before he could truly advance beyond the “apprenticeship” stage of his career.

What carried him through this rough patch was the joy he had discovered in dedication to craft, process, and preparation during his time on HRA’s forensics team and in the cast of Little Shop of Horrors. He remembers this period of challenges and growth with “tremendous gratitude for the journey.”

By 2013, the work paid off. Seamlessly transitioning between comedic and dramatic projects, just as he did as a student, White has assumed numerous noteworthy roles on television, in such projects as The Young and the Restless, Sean Saves the World, Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders, The Last Thing He Told Me, and perhaps most memorably General Hospital, where he stepped into the character of the nefarious Elijah Crowe in 2021. He has also built an impressive résumé in theatre and in high-profile video games, along with film credits such as Greenland (2020) and Same Kind of Different as Me (2017), in which he performed alongside Academy Award-winner Renée Zellweger.

Forever a Navigator

Back in town for Homecoming weekend and his thirtieth reunion in October 2025, White returned to HRA to speak with the students in Director of Theatre Kate Goddin’s Upper School acting seminar about his impressive career as a performer across a range of media. Enthusiastically sharing his story, answering students’ questions, and even staying after the class to offer personalized tips to aspiring actors and singers, White demonstrated his commitment to helping the next generation discover the passion, the confidence, and the work ethic he had developed as a Navigator.

Addressing students in the crowd who were just coming into their own creatively, his advice was simple: “Lean into it. … Keep on feeding it. You never stop learning.”

“It is so important for students to see that a life and career in performing arts is possible,” Goddin remarked after White’s visit. “The fact that he is an alum makes it even more impactful, because his life in the arts began on the same stage my students are performing on today.”

This connection was at the forefront of White’s thoughts during his time on campus. Just two months later, on December 13, he would play the lead in The Soul Café at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles. As he looked forward to this role, however, he could not help but reflect on his time as a student at the Academy.

“It’s exciting to still have the same love for the stage that I had back in spring 1995 during Little Shop of Horrors,” he said, “continuing to build on the foundation HRA gave me all those years ago.”