Qby. grad Nick Baroudi builds a career on stage & screen; Next! in ATF’s ‘Dial M’

By Cathy DeDe, Chronicle Managing Editor

As a student at Queensbury High School, Class of 1998, Nick Baroudi wasn’t a theater kid, mostly, he says, because he didn’t have the singing chops for shows that, as at many high schools, focused on musicals.

But he has since found his way as a professional actor on stage and screen. This week he makes his debut with the Adirondack Theatre Festival, playing Tony in Dial M for Murder.

‘Edgy’ new show at Wood Aug. 1-7

The new, “edgy” adaptation by Jeffrey Hatcher of the Alfred Hitchcock movie/Frederick Knott play runs Thursday to Wednesday, Aug. 1-7, at the Wood Theater, concluding ATF’s 30th anniversary season.

Quick plot: “Tony is convinced that his wife Margot has been cheating on him. Now it seems the affair is over, but in his jealousy Tony spins a web of suspicion and deception that will tighten…and ensnare them both in danger, recrimination and murder.”

Cast members also include Robert Najarian, who appeared in the original U.S. company of Sleep No More, as well as Yesenia Iglesias, Dennis Schebetta and Sigrid Sutter. Marcus Kyd directs.

Tix: $25 to $49, at ATFestival.org.

Checking in with Nick

Mr. Baroudi says he and wife Kristie Clune Baroudi keep a home in Glens Falls and divide their time between here and careers based in Manhattan.

“The silver lining of the pandemic for me was the transition” Mr. Baroudi says, from in-person casting and meetings, to “90% zoom and self taped auditions.”

“While I love being in the city, it really allowed me to adapt my lifestyle to be here more than I have been over the last 10 years.”

“The other good by-product was that I now get to meet with a lot more directors, producers and casting directors from all over the country, not just in Manhattan.

“So I’ve been traveling a lot more working. I’m going to to Nevada and to Norway in the fall. It’s opened up opportunities for me.”

“I shot a film last summer in Las Vegas and at Red Rocks in Nevada, a rock climbing thriller called The Sound, that was edited at Skywalker Ranch in California” Mr. Baroudi says. It’s not yet released but Mr. Baroudi says it looks like “something good has happened. They’ve already said, are you ready to go shoot the second one?”

That’ll be in Norway and again in Las Vegas, on a 180-degree, 3-D studio, one of only a few in the world, he said.

“I’m supposed to be the leader of this climbing unit, leading this mission to this forbidden wall. The funny thing is I’m supposed to be the best of the best at climbing, and I’m the only one they cast who’s never done it.”

“I was home, getting ready to prepare for it last summer, and I emailed Tom Rosecrans, who was my high school history teacher” — and who also happens to be a world-class rock climber and owner of Rocksport here in Queensbury

“I said, I’m the only one in the cast who’s not a real rock climber. Could you teach me? It was a really cool full circle kind of thing.”

Of course they have stunt doubles, but Mr. Baroudi laughs, “I want to look like I know what I’m doing in the close ups.”

“There was always something attractive about acting,” Mr. Baroudi said, even if musicals weren’t his strength. “I did a little bit in college, and then in my early 20s, I just thought I need an outlet. I thought it would be fun, a new thing to learn, a community to try to be a part of.”

He had a couple of small roles in Community Theater shows, including Moon over Buffalo. He was cast in the Vietnam drama Medal of Honor Rag by John Clohessey, a Glens Falls actor whose brother Robert is a regular on TV’s Blue Bloods.

Director Neil Akins saw Mr. Baruodi there and cast him in the lead of A Few Good Men for Glens Falls Community Theatre, “and the rest is history.”

“Neil took me under his wing and starting teaching me, to grow and evolve,” Mr. Baroudi says.

Exactly 10 years ago he was on the Wood Theater stage in All My Sons.

“I just started to I wonder if I could do this at the highest level. I started researching workshops and things in the city. I was just going down, doing day trips, down and back, careening around the city. Ignorance is bliss, because if I had any idea how difficult it really is, I would have never made that voyage.”

Fortunately, he says, a casting director noticed him and urged an agent to “sign this guy.”

“ I just got lucky that I ended up in the right place at the right moment to get to be signed and get people that were the right kind of advocates.”

He did an Off Broadway show called Love and Human Remains — “not exactly Arthur Miller,” he says — and has workied steadily especially in films and TV.

“Nothing,” as they say, “that you would have seen me in,” he laughs, but he’s making his living at the craft.

He was in a movie that won last year’s Adirondack Film Festival, presented by ATF. ATF director Miriam Weisfeld invited him to audition for this season and again, the rest is history.

When they offered him the part in Dial M, “I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to to go back onto that stage and be a part of ATF. I said yes pretty quickly.”

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