"Iphigenia" star Stirl unifies theater, paranormal investigation

When A&M-Commerce theater graduate student Jeff Stirl is not on stage or behind the scenes as a director, he will likely be found tracking down elusive cases of the paranormal.

The thirty-five year old Stirl taught at the high school and junior high levels for nine years before deciding to get his Master's degree.

"I did theater, taught speech, even coached football and basketball for a little while," Stirl said. "After a while, I just decided that I was tired of that, so I looked into a graduate program here, liked what I heard, and signed up."

Stirl is portraying Michael in the world premiere of "Iphigenia" at A&M-Commerce.

Stirl's dedication to the acting craft is evident to other performers.

"He's very committed to his work," Jacob Layton, an A&M-Commerce student who is also performing in "Iphigenia," said. "He puts in his time and knows what he's doing."

Stirl has been in many different plays and executed nearly every aspect of play production. He said his favorite has been "The Rainmaker" by N. Richard Nash.

Stirl enjoys investigating the paranormal in his spare time. He said he has had a fascination with the paranormal from a young age, and began his own investigating because of his disbelief in paranormal cases featured on television.

"I'm actually an officially licensed paranormal investigator," Stirl said. "One of my friends got involved with this group first, and I asked him to throw my name in there. I wanted to get involved, but we have since left that group and formed our own group called Unknown Paranormal Group."

The play Stirl is currently writing, "Possessed," is based on a paranormal incident he investigated in Northeastern Oklahoma earlier this year.

"The lady called us and claimed that she had been held down in bed by an unseen force," he said. "She looked up and saw a dark figure standing at the foot of her bed. Another night, she was lying down and something icy-cold touched her back. A DVD rack had flown off and hit her boyfriend. Her daughter had actually been thrown. A table in her kids' room got thrown against a wall."

Stirl investigated the case in person.

"We had quite a few things happen," he said. "I don't know if it would qualify as absolute, hard evidence, but three of our team members were knocked over by something that wasn't there, and I saw this with my own eyes."

Stirl wants to use his "Possessed" play as his thesis, and after "Iphigenia" is finished, he hopes to do a table-reading of his play. Those interested in learning more about Stirl's paranormal investigating group may visit unknownpg.com.