And not only that, but Gravenhorst has particularly unique insight into new, original plays inspired by classic American literature, having himself recently written and performed a one-man show based on the life of playwright Eugene O'Neill.

My Antonia, adapted by writer/director Scott Schwartz, opened last weekend in Mountain View as the centerpiece of TheatreWorks' New Works Festival, which takes place April 14­18. Fittingly, the play was featured at TheatreWorks' first New Works Festival.

My Antonia tells the story of a man's reminiscences of growing up in the 1880s in newly settled Nebraska, where he befriended the daughter of a family of German immigrants. The play jumps back in forth in time, as the man, named Jim Burden, remembers his boyhood. Gravenhorst portrays the Conductor, a character who is tied to no particular time period. "Essentially, the Conductor is a character who exists in both the present and the past," says Gravenhorst. "The Conductor is a character who appears both to young Jim and to old Jim on their journeys on the train. So he's somewhat of a magical character who can exist in both of those worlds and serves as a kind of a connection between young Jim's experience and older Jim's experience."

The role is small, Gravenhorst says, but helps unify the worlds of past and present.

"The character is a device that helps the audience make the connection between the present and the past, says Gravenhorst "which I think is one of the themes of the play--the connection of the past with the present."

Gravenhorst has been teaching English at Foothill College full-time since 1985, and before that, he taught part-time at several area community colleges. During that time, he has worked as an actor in a number of area productions. He is also a senior division cross country and track runner.

It was at graduate school in Nevada, where Gravenhorst was studying English, that he had his first experience with acting, courtesy of a Shakespeare professor who was also the artistic director of a community theater company. "They were doing a play called The Mouse that Roared, and all they needed was a kind of radical, 1960s student-looking long-haired person to run across the stage and deliver a line, and I had long hair, so I guess I fit," recalls Gravenhorst. "And I literally just ran across the stage and delivered this line that was somewhat funny, and ran off. And it turned out that the line was very funny--at least the audience thought so--and I was quite surprised the first time I heard that many people laugh in unison over something I had said.

"I'll never forget the feeling of dashing off into the wings and hearing this laughter and I think from that moment, I just thought that I would really like to experience that again. Then of course, I realized I could do it again the next night," he laughs.

Roles with his college company and the local repertory company followed, and Gravenhorst has been acting ever since.

The inspiration for Into the Wake of the Moon, Gravenhorst's biographical play about Eugene O'Neill, came to him almost as serendipitously as his first acting gig. Attending a conference on O'Neill's works at the Tao House in Danville, where O'Neill lived during World War II, Gravenhorst was struck by the drama of the playwright's own life.

"I realized that his life had all the elements of tragic drama that were in his plays," he says. "I was just amazed by the story and captivated by it and I instantly thought that it would make an excellent piece of theater. So I immediately had in my mind the idea of writing such a show, not as a complete play with characters, but I thought it would be a great one-man show to have O'Neill perhaps tell his own story."

The play ended up being some15 years in the making, with Gravenhorst using his sabbatical to pen the work. Last year, he performed Into the Wake of the Moon at the Foothill Studio Theatre and invited the Eugene O'Neill Foundation to see the show. To Gravenhorst's surprise, the president of the foundation attended the performance and afterwards, asked him to perform his play at the reopening celebrations for Tao House, which had been closed for retrofitting. "I was able to return full-circle to Tao House. I was able to portray O'Neill at Tao House, sponsored by the O'Neill Foundation. It just couldn't have worked out any better."

Since then, Gravenhorst has reprised his role as O'Neill by portraying him at a living history day at Tao House, in which members of the public could tour the house and chat with actors playing the O'Neill family and servants. Gravenhorst will return as O'Neill for any future living history days.

TheatreWorks presents "My Antonia" through April 25 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Art, 500 Castro St, Mountain View. Tickets are $20-$48. For more information, call 650.903.6000.