Meet Eric Myrick of A Dreamer’s Production in East Hollywood

Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric Myrick.

So, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
My story is what the kids these days call A JOURNEY. I am primarily a professional actor here in Los Angeles and for the longest time, I really ONLY considered myself an actor. I kind of reveled in the idea that I had this one thing that I was going to specialize in and focus on! I have performed on screen (Televisions shows like GLOW, Jane the Virgin, The Affair, etc.) and on Stage in Los Angeles and on the East Coast/Midwest and it wasn’t until I took a part-time day job at Universal Studios Hollywood that I met the people that would eventually broaden my horizons.

“Broaden your horizon” is a phrase that my mother used when I was little to encourage me to look beyond my current lifestyle and dream big. I grew up in the tiny town of Ypsilanti Township, Michigan and only about a third of my peers ventured out of that town after high school. I was a regular kid who did sports and band and even performed in drama club for a couple of years, but I never considered any of those to be “real” jobs that people actually pursued! That is until my mother, who works at the University of Michigan, let me know that she was going to give a couple of my drama club friends a tour of the Theatre Department! She may as well have been speaking another language because all I heard was “day off from school.” The next day I went on the college tour to end all college tours. Nine full hours of being completely awestruck by the professionalism and poise of the acting students. I had no idea that you could STUDY to become an actor. I had no idea what an acting class was! It was a life changing experience. I auditioned for the University of Michigan’s Theatre Performance: Acting program, was accepted, and spent four incredible years honing my skills and expanding my aspirations (broadening my horizons) beyond what I was told were my limits back home.

Fast forward to post-grad at my new day job as a Studio Tour Guide at Universal Studios Hollywood. My horizons were pretty fixed. As broad as I thought they were gonna get. Acting 100% and any diversion was a distraction. That was until I met Aleeycia Hollman, Ellie Gonzolez, Jake Bistrong, and Sean Masson. All guides at Universal, I knew that they were entertainment industry professionals but I was unaware as to how talented and ambitious they were until the opportunity to shine presented itself. A short film script that Aleeycia Hollman (President and CEO) who had just started a fledgling production company A Dreamer’s Production came knocking on my door. She is the type of person that will eventually be ALL of our boss, so it was an obvious choice to get in on the ground level as a senior executive. I am currently the most senior creative mind at the company and my official title at is ‘Executive Vice President of Creative Development’.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The road to stability is almost never smooth. For me, personally, there was a learning curve for sure! I majored in Acting! Running the Creative Development department at a full-service production company took studying, patience, and several trials by fire! Plus, I made sure to continue to prioritize my Acting career as well! Many of my role models in the industry are professional artists running their companies simultaneously so I made it a point to let my Acting career fuel my career as a production executive and to try my hardest to let my production career fuel my acting. I wanted the company to fuel my acting career on both on a practical level (I make sure to include myself in as many projects as I can as a performer) and on a more spiritual level! Having a creative outlet during the inevitable dry spells that come with an acting career has been AMAZING for my mental health! And ironically, having the production company to keep my brain active and creative at all times has increased my booking rate on acting jobs! I’m slowly finding a really sweet spot and I couldn’t be happier.

Please tell us about A Dreamer’s Production.
“A Dreamer’s Productions creates and promotes exceptional, valuable art. We dream that by giving all creative individuals the opportunity to tell stories that illuminate our largely colorful human condition, those same groups will dream-up a world where the most disparate parts of our society exist side by side.”

That’s the mission statement for our company and I think it does a pretty good job of explaining what our company aims to do on a broad level. On a more practical level we are a production company based in Los Angeles that specializes in narrative film, television, and commercials. In the nine months that we’ve been operational we’ve completed a short, a commercial, written an eight episode half-hour comedy, and are gearing up to start production on a feature on the east coast.

As the head of the Creative Development department, it is my job to shepherd a project from the idea (sometimes even before the idea) to the point where it is ready to be handed over to the production department. I work with writers and producers on their scripts and their pitches, I handle staffing and casting, I work with production on the pre-production process, etc. I am incredibly proud of the comedy pilot that we are currently shopping around town. We originally commissioned a team of six writers in order to create an eight episode web series, but the concept was so successful in the room and we received such positive commercial attention outside of the room that we teamed up with an agency to begin pitching the project this summer for the upcoming pilot selling season.

One thing that sets us apart from most production companies in Los Angeles and around the country is something that shouldn’t be remarkable in 2019 but unfortunately it is; A Dreamer’s Production is run at the senior level 75% by people of color and 50% by women of color (notably the CEO is an African American woman). Diversity of background, experience, and ideas is a strength. Women at the top is a strength. We are incredibly proud of our demographics and we attribute much of our quick success to the tenaciousness that being a group of young POC in Hollywood brings us.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
Luck is simply preparation met with opportunity. The staff at A Dreamer’s Production has been preparing for the opportunities we are being presented with for our entire lives! We all pretty much function under the working moto that you can eliminate the possibility for “bad luck” by working so hard that success is unavoidable.

I think I can say the same for my acting career! A ton of thanks goes out to my parents for having the wherewithal to send me to SCHOOL for acting so that when the abundance of LA-opportunity arose, I was prepared enough to succeed. I still have a long ways to go, and I still have a LOT of goals left unchecked but I feel like this is a great start.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.adreamersproduction.com/
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adreamersproduction/?hl=en
• Other: www.ericmyrick.com

Image Credit:
David Muller (this personal photo includes ME and the VP of Drama at A Dreamer’s Production, Kourtney Bell), Sean Mason, Aleeycia Hollman

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