Robert Blanche and I met around 2008 on the set of Bucksville, a locally produced independent film directed by Chel White. Robert was the kind of person who could take over a room—big personality, endless stories, and a natural producer’s mind. Besides being a fine actor, he understood how things worked. I never really did. I’ve always been, more or less, a one-trick pony: an actor.

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In fact, Robert directed me for my audition for Boardwalk Empire, which got me two nice episodes on the series. I could not have gotten that role without him.

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We became good friends. Not long after that film, Robert and I ended up sharing a teaching space together in the City Sign Company building on Portland’s industrial Eastside—a four-story walk-up with a distinctly New York feel. We taught side by side for several years. We even talked about the two of us simply getting off book and putting up a small show for the twenty seats in our classroom, just because we could—which became my inspiration for the BareBones Theatre wing at 21ten.

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Robert had a congenital lung condition that gave him coughing fits. Over time, his breathing problems worsened. Eventually, he needed a lung transplant to survive. At the time, the average life expectancy after a successful transplant was around three years. In Robert’s case, the lungs never fully took. After countless procedures and powerful drugs fighting to keep them in his body, Robert died about a year after the operation.

I often think that, had he lived, Robert and I might have ended up running a theater together—him as the brains, me as the brawn.

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Fast forward to 2021. I was now teaching with Brooke Totman in that same City Sign Company space when she discovered that the Shoebox Theater on SE 10th was vacant. She pushed—hard—for us to take the leap and find a way to make it work by renting it out to productions and continuing to teach. I caved. A year later, we produced our first play. Until that moment, I had not taken seriously the idea of actually running a theater.

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That theater became 21ten Theatre.

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When we moved in, I brought with me many items from the old studio—some of them inherited from Robert. His diner table, which we had used for countless restaurant scenes, fit perfectly into a small nook by the front window.

About a month later, a friend of Robert’s came to see the space. When he noticed the table, he stopped short and said, “Damn. Robert’s table is back where it belongs.”

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I had no idea what he meant.

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He explained that years earlier—long before I ever knew him—Robert and the Freeman Brothers had occupied this very space. They were the first to use it as a performance and teaching venue. Before that, it had been many things, including a restaurant.

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That realization hit me hard. I had no idea Robert had been here before me.

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Since then, I’ve liked to imagine him watching over what we’ve built at 21ten—maybe even quietly helping out on the production side, which remains my greatest blind spot. Sometimes, when I’m alone in the theater, I talk to him under my breath. I tell him what we’re working on. I ask his advice. I hope he approves.

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It felt like this table found its way home.

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And that is why this space is called Robert’s Nook.