Today we’d like to introduce you to Curtis Shepard.
Hi Curtis, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My name is Curtis Drake Shepard, and I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. Raised by my aunt, I grew up in the communities of Avondale and Walnut Hills. I graduated from Hughes High School where I met my first love, the STAGE! I tried college several times and eventually I surrendered to my inability to confirm to the structure and rules of higher learning. Still, I managed to find myself in the rooms of corporate America immersed in accounting and insurance work. I balanced my white-collar life during the day with being on the stage at night and partying every moment in between. Eventually the drug use increased so it wasn’t hard to ditch my white-collar uniform for boots and construction work. Beer for lunch and no drug tests was just the life I wanted at the time. Eventually, the lights, the women, the touring and partying took a toll and off to rehab I went. I was clean for exactly 100 days then back to the streets I went for another couple of years. Somehow, I managed to return to the rooms of N.A. and one day at a time, I stayed clean and started writing and performing poetry and my own one-man shows that dealt with addiction, homelessness, mental illness and abuse. I was blessed to be a resident artist at the Cincinnati Playhouse where two of my productions hit the stage. I was afraid of the old me coming back so I adopted the poetry name, ‘Curt…from Detox’ when I performed.
Fifteen years ago, my daughter was born and although I was clean, fatherhood presented a whole new brand of growing up. Although the stage was still my first love, it wasn’t paying the bills so, a friend encouraged me to start my own drywall and plaster company, ‘The Plaster Surgeon’.
Slowly, the bills started getting paid, but I realized that it takes more than money to be a dad. Especially a single dad. especially, a single, girl-dad. One of my superpowers is the ability to ask for help and trust me, I asked a LOT! I learned that I wasn’t only trying to be there for my daughter, but I was also trying to compensate for growing up without many, if any, memories of my father. Me and a few other dads jokingly started calling ourselves, Dads Against Angry Moms. D.A.A.M. My sponsor reminded me to keep the focus on myself, not on mom so I began to look for inexpensive, very inexpensive activities to do with my daughter. Things like gardening, yoga, writing exercises…ect. I enlisted the help of some friends and with their support, D.A.A.M. has grown into an official non-profit. Our primary mission is to support moms with more than money by encouraging absent dads to be present dads, giving present dads the connections they need to be good dads in the hopes that they can become great dads. And if you’re a ‘great dad’, then we encourage you to come out and share your experience and strength the rest of us and tell us how you do it.
Over the years we’ve partnered with ACE Hardware. Starbucks, NYPD Pizza, The Citrus Tree, Funke’s Garden Center, The KNOW Theatre and The Liberty Exhibition Hall. Our signature events include: Plant with Dads, Legacy Letters, The DAAM Poetry and Story Telling Jam and in 2026, we’re looking to add Computer Coding with Dads, Smart Investments and Yoga with Dads.
The stage is still my first love but not for the applause nor the lights nor the women but for the story telling. For the message. In January 2026, we’ll have the world premiere of my latest one-man production, ‘The Kitchen Table’ in Indianapolis.
Fatherhood is my passion and my motto is, ‘Have message, will travel’!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Oh, it certainly has not been a ‘smooth; road but I wouldn’t have it any other way. My struggles helped me to gain strength. Obstacles and problems have become opportunities and possibilities.
The struggles? You name it. Homelessness, jobless, penniless, hopelessness, fatherless, addiction. But there is no complaining here. Everyone has struggles. Some just wear a better mask. In my home, we try to count it all joy because as long as the sun offers you the privilege of seeing it shine another day, you get a chance at bat when so many will never have an opportunity to even get in the game again.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I once heard television and radio personality Steve Harvey say, “Your gift is the thing you do the absolute best with the least amount of effort”. If I looked at it from this perspective, my gift is writing. Storytelling, poetry, stage plays and motivational pieces.
What do I specialize in? Encouragement and telling the truth. The ability to see a situation and ask the most important questions when creating- who, what, when, where, why and how. Never to preach but to give the audience or the reader the freedom to look within, draw their own conclusions and ask their own questions.
What am I known for? By who? From when? Because I’m not the same man I was twenty or thirty years ago, some would attempt to describe or define me by who I was then. An actor, and addict, a drifter. Wouldn’t it be cool if at the end of it all, the majority would conclude that I was an agent for good. A change agent. A non-conforming creative. That would be nice. But when all the chatter died down, I think I’d be okay if they said that I did my best to be the best dad I could be, one experience at a time.
What am I most proud of? Beyond twenty-nine years clean? Going from homeless to a homeowner? Owning and operating my own business? This might sound corny, but I think that I am most proud of the moments when I can cancel out the chatter and give my complete attention to my fifteen-year-old daughter. I am proud of the freedom that we, together, have cultivated in our home that allows her to believe, to know that her voice counts. Today, I am proud to be present.
What sets me apart from others? Probably just the facts. I don’t know, personally, a lot of people like me. African American male, recovering addict, homeowner, business owner, non-profit founder, actor, writer, spoken word artist, carpenter, great cook, helicopter dad and most importantly, child of God. I’m absolutely sure there are more like me out there. Also, I’m funny as hell.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
What was I like growing up?
Wayward. A loner. A stoner. A runaway. Very cool and smooth. Spoiled. Always felt alone, even in a crowd. I loathed rigid structure and rules that could neither be explained by those enforcing them nor those refusing to believe that it was possible to bend them. I loved music and I loved words! By the time I reached my senior year in high school, my favorite books were the Bible, the dictionary and the thesaurus.
Pricing:
- DAAM events are Always FREE
- UnMasked- 1500 per show. 1750 with 30 minute talk back.
- SidewazeRain- 1700 per show. 2000 with 30 minute talk back
- The Kitchen Table- 1500 per show. 1750 with 30 minute talk back
Contact Info:
- Website: ourdaamlegacy@gmail.com
- Instagram: curtisdshepard
- Facebook: Curtis D Shepard
- LinkedIn: Curtis Shepard
- Youtube: @curtisdshepard
