Victor Shopov’s college “hobby” of acting has continued long after he graduated. The Swampscott resident of more than two decades has a featured role in the Hub Theatre Company of Boston’s upcoming production of “Burn This” by Lanford Wilson.
A native of Rochester, N.Y., Shopov and his family first moved to the town in 2000.
“We always liked the water,” Shopov said. “We were looking for somewhere along the coast and my mom really fell in love with the town and found this great home here.”
Shopov studied politics and journalism at Emerson College before receiving his MBA from Northeastern University. For the last eight years, Shopov has worked as a project director at Harvard Medical School. All the while, his passion for acting never faded.
“I’ve been acting in Boston for about 17 years,” Shopov said. “It’s really conducive to people like me who work full-time professionally in some other field.”
He says the differences between his acting and work responsibilities give him the opportunity to “exercise both parts of his brain.”
Shopov’s local theater career has earned him no shortage of accolades, as he has been recognized by both the Independent Reviewers of New England and the Boston Theater Critics Association on multiple occasions for his performances.
“I won the Elliot Norton Award in 2015 for a production of ‘Bent’ with the Zeitgeist Stage Company,” Shopov recalled. “And in 2010, I won the IRNE award for a production of ‘Enron.’”
Shopov said he considered pursuing his passion as a full-time career in the past, but feels that acting voluntarily allows him to perform from a source of authenticity instead of necessity.
“I was happy with the balance I had, which was being able to work a full-time job during the day and then do this (acting) from time to time at night,” Shopov said. “I enjoyed it more knowing that my livelihood did not depend on it… because then I was doing it for passion reasons as opposed to survival reasons.”
One reason Shopov said he was drawn to “Burn This” was that its themes and messages relating to grief resonated with him. He said his character deals with the recent death of his brother throughout the play.
“It asks a lot of questions about grief and how we process that,” Shopov said. “Grief has always been something I personally have wrestled with and so being able to explore it through this particular lens is therapeutic in one sense, but it’s also a challenge in another.”
“Burn This” opens on Saturday, April 6 with performances on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays through Sunday, April 21 at the Boston Center for the Arts Black Box Theatre.
