Luke Barr, a Dallas Native, has spent most of his life in the Big D including short stints in Los Angeles California where he attended the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and picked up a few acting roles on such shows as NBC’s “Days of Our Lives” and multiple stage shows while attending UCLA such as “Blood Ballet”. But it wasn’t until he dropped out of school that he decided follow his heart into the world of entertainment. He started working the night club circuit as a host and comedian gaining him local notoriety for his laundry list of quirky characters he created for his comedy, improve, and comedic shorts; some of which were featured on Will Ferrell’s funnyordie.com and E’s Daily Top Ten “E True Hollywood Story of Pearl”, a comedic spoof based off Will Ferrell’s “The Landlord” and “Billy the Sport”, in which Luke co-wrote and co-starred along Brother Matt Barr of the CW’s “Hellcats”.
Soon after The writers’ strike of ’07 Luke found himself at a crossroad between staying in LA to hack it out or taking a job with a “little” known cruise line… Disney! He started as an Entertainment Host, a very sought after position with a wait list years long. His prior work in the industry and talent bumped him to the top of Disney’s list and he joined the fleet. He quickly realized that there was a higher position that would suit his style on hosting better for him and the guests on board. With that in mind he set his sights on the Specialty Host, who is in charge of hosting all the entertainment on board. Finally, Luke knew his place in the world. He could hold the audience in his hands and turn them in any direction he wanted, all to their enjoyment. He was quickly promoted to Specialty Host where he cut his teeth to the bone, being able to understand and entertain an audience much his senior. About 30 years to be exact. To this day Luke remains the youngest Specialty Host in Disney Cruise Line History and was featured in many Disney 360 commercials and has had the pleasure of interviewing greats like Don “Ducky” Williams, one of the original Cartoonists in the Disney Company. He has also interviewed Aly and AJ Michalka, Joey Fatone (N’Sync), Alfonso Ribeiro (Fresh Prince), Jay Harris (ESPN – Sports Center), and Local Dallas Band “The King Bucks”.
He currently resides in Uptown Dallas working as a webcaster and Host. He is the Host/MC of the Big D Opry, a country music showcase presented at the Historical Gilley’s Music Hall. He is also working on two pilots simultaneously, “Aftersports” – a “Where are they now” interview show about great athletes of the past decades and “Tonight Tonight” a late night interview talk show incorporating local music talent into a live audience format with interview and performance from the band. As busy as he is Luke still finds time to play on two Soccer teams, write music in his home, work a full time job as the Senior Operations Manager of Thomas Avenue Beverage Company (TABC, a local favorite gastro pub of Uptown), and do voice over work when booked for companies like NBC. He also recently recorded the audio narrative of “Scheherazade” in which he played King Shyar, which is being used for entertainment and to teach blind children to read brail. He is very proud of this and hopes to do more to benefit those less fortunate.
Luke just spent 6 months in an intensive course study program at a local College studying Radio, TV, and Film Broadcast. His courses including ‘Writing for radio, Film and TV’, ‘Announcing for Radio, Film and TV’, and ‘Public Speaking’, which is a course based on giving speech presentations in many different mediums including, but not limited to, award acceptance, political address, humanitarian persuasion, informative, extemporaneous, prose in literature performance, etc. His writing course including writing formatted radio copy for commercials, formatted copy for TV as well as a pitch for a TV series, commercials, and a Film pitch including the first twelve pages of hard copy, synopsis, and benefits package (benefits relating to audience consumption, not 401k’s and health insurance). The announcing class was an advanced program that focused on voice control, pitch and dialect in the mediums of Radio commercials to ad-libs, TV presenting, TV news coverage, and audio book voice projection. It also included an in depth look at the different styles of broadcasting from man-on-the-street spots to our current standard of the era of the great communicator in radio and TV.
