Piper Blouin Foley, B.F.A. 2007, Performance
Jaike Foley, B.F.A. 2008, Performance
Everyone remembers the cattle call auditions that feature all the new students. It was there that Piper saw Jaike and said, “Who is that guy?” Jaike noticed Piper in a show at Shafer Street Playhouse, “I thought she was hot and a good actress.” He invited her to a party, and she says “that was one of three parties I ever attended, and the only reason I went was to spend time with Jaike.”
When Piper was 3, she started singing with her musician father at the library in Lexington, VA. Her brother, Mikey Blouin (BFA’06), went to VCU Theatre the year before her, so “he was my safe person and I wanted to be near him.” Jaike’s first leading role was as Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady at the Williamsburg School of the Arts in York County. The show travelled to the Edinburgh Theatre Festival and that “solidified my career.”
When they met at VCU, Jaike was freshman and Piper was a sophomore, but he likes to point out that he’s actually 6 days older than Piper. Their first official date was on her 19th birthday, “We went to a Shafer Street play and had cake and watched Spiderman.” Jaike chimes in, “It was also our first kiss.”
After graduation Piper moved to Orlando to work at Disney World, while Jaike went to New York. After touring for a children’s theatre, he decided, “I definitely want to be with her,” so he went to Florida and, “we decided to be together.”
In 2009, Piper moved back to NYC, where she got cast in indies and shorts, while Jaike worked in the summers at Kentucky Repertory Theatre, now closed, and North Carolina Shakespeare Festival. Their frustration with the lack of decent projects led them to produce their own web series, Chompers.
Since they had predominately been getting film work in New York City, they moved to LA, but after spending less than two years there, they decided they wanted to have kids. So, they moved back to Lexington, VA in 2015 to be closer to Piper’s family, where they still live. Their children are Jacob (age 8), and Aria (age 6). Jaike teaches 5th grade science, reading and writing, which he can relate to his VCU degree: “When you’re doing a lesson for kids, you’re on stage the whole time…I use my acting skills to keep them engaged.”
Piper has stayed active in a local community theater, where she wrote and directed a Christmas play. She’s also in her final year of graduate school with a specialty in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. “The biggest theatre skill from VCU is non-verbal communications. I can watch a client shift and that is indicating something emotionally deeper.” She’d like to specialize in psychodrama and wants to teach Shakespeare to local inmates.
Compiled by Liz Hopper (professor emeritus), Jerry Williams (BFA ’71), and VCUarts Theatre for the February 2024 Theatre Alumni newsletter