Mike Coon has taken his acting career outside of the Cornerstone community. He’s taking it to the big stage – the Grand stage.

Coon was recently nominated for Best Supporting Actor in the community division of the Grand Awards for his role as Beethoven in “Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead.”

“The cool thing is that he was the only one from the show that got nominated,” said Jennifer Hunter, associate professor and director of theater at CU. “It is also the first time we’ve had a CU student get nominated for the community theater award.”

Coon, though, has other goals in mind.

“For me, winning wasn’t the goal, and even nomination wasn’t the goal,” Coon said. “The show was done, and I feel like it was done well.”

Coon spent much time reflecting on his personality and the Beethoven character’s personality and how they interact. He said it was difficult learning to pick up this new character’s personality.

“[Beethoven] wants to be loved,” he said. “He wants to be accepted.”

Yet it was easier for the character to reject this compassion.

“A lot of the dialogue was him pushing people away,” Coon said. “So how do you play a character that is constantly pushing people away, but still wants people to love him and accept him?”

“It’s less about how hard you work for it – and I did work for it. It was a difficult role for me. It was how much could you let the role speak to you and be able to come to terms with what that charters purpose is in the whole play and then take that knowledge and show it on stage.”

Finding the role wasn’t easy.

“I feel like you have to figure out what they want in a character and then figure out how they are going to get it,” he said. “Those are the two things you have to get in acting. It’s a journey. Characters are complex because they aren’t people, they’re just characters.”

While Coon wasn’t acting for the nomination, he’s satisfied that judges are noticing his talents.

“Theater is the choice of what I want to do with my life, so it’s a marker to say, ‘keep going,’” Coon said. “People are seeing some of the theater I’m doing and are [pleased]. That’s just an encouragement to [hear them] say, ‘You’ve found what you should be doing and keep doing it.’”

Coon trains during the summer by working at Dogwood Center for Performing Arts in Fremont, Mich., where he directs plays. The two shows including Little Shop of Horrors and Clue: the Musical. His Cornerstone education has also helped.

“I thought Cornerstone was formative in my theater life,” he said. “The great thing about Cornerstone’s theater is you can make it what you want it to be. Since it is a new program, it’s designed for people who aren’t sure what they want to do going into it.”

Hunter spoke about the strong theater tradition in Grand Rapids.

“We have a theater-rich society in Grand Rapids, so theater majors have a lot of opportunities in the community,” she said. “There’s a lot of competition though, because these community roles are being fought for by other college theater majors in the area. Now that he’s off to graduate school, this is a great legacy to leave behind.”

Coon credited his crew’s teamwork.

“I do take it as an achievement of mine, but even more I take it as an achievement of the cast,” he said. “It’s really everybody feeding off of each other and the energy of one person feeds into the next person.”