Duck is a Michigan native that moved to Minneapolis in 1995 to get his undergraduate degree in Theater Arts from the University of Minnesota. During the four years he was in school, Duck worked on 44 productions around the Twin Cities, served as the departments’ Audio Design TA, and as a student theatrical peer advisor. In 1999 Duck was Awarded the Charles Washburn Nichols Service Award, given to the graduating senior who had contributed the most to the department during their time as a student. Duck completed internships at the Guthrie Theater in audio design and stage management and another internship at The Sound Company, London. Duck has worked in various capacities for many of the theaters around the Twin Cities doing everything from Dramaturgy to Pyrotechnics. In 2016 Washington was awarded Best Actor in a Play by Broadway World Minneapolis for his performance in Caucasian-Aggressive Pandas and Other Mulatto Tales, a play influenced by Duck’s own experiences growing up mixed race in America. The play would later be banned from performing in Burnsville by the Ames Center with support of the mayor and City Council that made national headlines. The play was eventually remounted in Bloomington instead. Since then, Duck has continued to be active in theater while also trying to use his influence to bring opportunity to others. Especially underrepresented voices. When not doing theater Duck is a nature enthusiast that loves birding. Duck is also a lifelong fan of Star Wars and geeks out about movies generally. Duck is also a big Los Angeles Lakers fan and a season ticket holder to the Minnesota Lynx. Duck also holds the position of manager in the Math Center For Educational Programs at the University of Minnesota.

It is kind of a long story, but the one I tell most often. When I was a child I was obsessed with animals and basically lived at my local zoo. I went to Zoo school, I became a volunteer Teen Zookeeper, and once I turned 16 I was hired to walk and give rides on ponies, horses, and camels. There was a particular summer that was a little strange. All of the children started to become terrified that the camels were going to spit at them. I didn’t really understand why. While the llamas spit, in all the years I had been at the zoo I had never seen a camel spit and it made the summer much harder. It was difficult to convince a macho parent that putting their terrified, crying, flailing child on a 1000 lb animal was not the smartest idea. Anyhow, the summer came and went. I forgot all about the weird surge in camel phobia until later that year. It was extremely late at night at a cast party for a high school production of Damn Yankees I had played the lead in and someone decided to put on the movie Aladdin. Within the first few minutes they show a camel spitting at someone. Then it clicks. All the kids saw this movie when it came out over the summer, and now kids think camels are going to spit at them. It was the reason for my summer grief and I decided that I hated the movie and was going to be sure everyone else hated the movie too. I went on a rant. I said the movie was racist because the good characters had big round eyes while the bad characters had more ethnically distinct characteristics. I said the jokes wouldn’t be funny in 30 years. I said the cat(tiger) was behaving more like a dog. Basically anything I could complain about for 35 or 40 minutes I did. Until this girl who had been drinking sex on the beach all night (don’t do it kids) turned to me and blurted out “Shut up…..you sound…..like a duck ... .Quack, quack, quack.” Everyone thought it was hilarious. Jaime Hartke (she once made me promise to always give her credit so I always do) gave me my name. Duck stuck and I have been called Duck ever since.