Army combat veteran on theater as therapy for trauma

By John Moore December 20, 2025 | updated 6 months ago

2025 DENVER GAZETTE TRUE WEST AWARDS: DAY 21

Retired Staff Sergeant, actor and Springs Ensemble Theatre president found out the long way that his father had his back all along

As an actor, director and president of Springs Ensemble Theatre, retired U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Matt Radcliffe has a ready rejoinder whenever he’s confronted with an everyday crisis. Like, say: “The set didn’t get painted on time!” Or: “Our building just got sold!”

“Pretty much any challenge we face, I have the fortunate and unfortunate ability to take a step back and say, ‘Well, at least I’m not in Baghdad,’” said Radcliffe. “Because no matter what else happens … no one is going to die.’”

It’s not uncommon to see a veteran wearing a metal cuff on their wrist. They’re called memorial bracelets and, as Radcliffe explains it to me, they’re for when you’ve seen someone die.

“I hate saying this, but I don’t wear one,” he said. “Because I would have to wear 10 of them.

“The experience that I had in Iraq was a lot of deaths. A lot of mayhem. And, for whatever reason, it happened all around me.”

Radcliffe knows a lot about combat and PTSD and survivor’s guilt. He also knows a lot about theater – and how theater can help veterans process and move on from trauma. Like in September, when he played movie star Roy Scheider in Springs Ensemble Theatre’s staging of “The Shark is Broken,” a dramedy about the making of “Jaws” 50 years ago.

“For me, what theater does – particularly when I’m acting – it’s that moment when you’re really, really nailing it,” Radcliffe said. “Everything else falls away, and you’re just living in that moment as that character, and everybody in the room is focused on that one space and time.”

Say what you will about “Jaws” and the $280 million it made at the box office (a profit of $273 million). “The Shark is Broken” became the first show in Springs Ensemble Theatre’s 16-year history to sell out its entire run (albeit with box-office revenue a bit south of $280 mil).

Take that, Spielberg.

From left: Steve Emily (as Robert Shaw), Matt Radcliffe (as Roy Scheider) and Colin Gregory (as Richard Dreyfuss) in Spring Ensemble Theatre's 2025 staging of 'The Shark is Broken. (John Moore, The Denver Gazette) — From left: Steve Emily (as Robert Shaw), Matt Radcliffe (as Roy Scheider) and Colin Gregory (as Richard Dreyfuss) in Spring Ensemble Theatre’s 2025 staging of ‘The Shark is Broken. (John Moore, The Denver Gazette)

Spring into the past

Springs Ensemble Theatre (SET for short) performs at a beguiling little place called The Fifty-Niner. It’s a hidden speakeasy nestled at the back of the Dice Guys Game Store right off the main drag in quaint Old Colorado City, 7 miles west of Colorado Springs. It seats only 50, and on Aug. 31, Radcliffe arranged for me to take the 50th and final available seat at a table where you can order food and drinks off your phone. Right next to a tough-looking old guy who looked like he got lost on the way to the mess hall.

Matt’s dad.

I didn’t know that at first, but we struck up a quick conversation that charmed both my shoes and socks right off. Retired U.S. Army Senior Sgt. Jim Radcliffe was in town from Houston to see his two sons, play with his three grandkids and watch Matt’s latest performance. Like me, alone.

In that brief 10 minutes, I learned all sorts of things about Matt that I couldn’t have known from watching his progression both as an actor in plays like “A Steady Rain,” and as the level-headed SET president who orchestrated the company’s bittersweet 2023 move out of its home of 13 years forced by a greedy new landlord’s ballooning rent.

Again, Old Colorado City is not exactly Baghdad.

“When that all went down, Matt allowed himself one day to freak out and be really pissed off about it,” said Steve Emily, Radcliffe’s friend, co-star and company vice president. “And this is where the military thing comes in. Then, he’s like: ‘OK, we’ve identified the problem, now let’s identify the solution – because there’s always a solution out there. We’re just going to have to dig for it, and we’ve got to do it quick.’” That’s Matt.

I learned from Jim that Matt was a third-generation Eagle Scout as a boy and the recipient of a Bronze Star from the Army as a man. Jim’s chest practically puffed out of his shirt talking about it, silenced only by the start of the play.

Matt later emailed to swear he didn’t deliberately seat me next to his dad. I told Matt I was glad he did. “That man is very proud of all you artsy kids he had,” I wrote back.

From left: Colin Gregory (as Richard Dreyfuss), Matt Radcliffe (as Roy Scheider) and Steve Emily (as Robert Shaw) in Spring Ensemble Theatre's 2025 staging of 'The Shark is Broken. (Emory John Collinson) — From left: Colin Gregory (as Richard Dreyfuss), Matt Radcliffe (as Roy Scheider) and Steve Emily (as Robert Shaw) in Spring Ensemble Theatre’s 2025 staging of ‘The Shark is Broken. (Emory John Collinson)

On Saturday morning, talking by phone, Matt told me two bookended stories involving his father that he feels fully frame Matt’s complicated life as both a soldier and a formerly closeted gay man.

The first: “I’m a little kid, and we’re in a car with my dad driving us to visit his family in Rhode Island,” Matt said. “My whole life, I knew two things: I knew that I was gay, and I knew that it was wrong. But here we are in the car. My brother’s in the backseat. I’m sitting next to my dad, and we’re listening to a Queen tape on the radio. I distinctly remember thinking, ‘OK, this is it. This is the moment I just need to tell him that I’m gay.’

“And for whatever reason, right at that moment – off-handed, with no hate – he just goes, ‘Well, that’s enough of those f*gg*ts.’ Then he hits the eject button and puts in a new tape. He would never remember that today, but that was the moment I was like, ‘Oh, OK. I get it. I can never tell my dad that I’m gay. I just can never, never do that.’”

He was 6.

“So, if we fast forward: I’m in Iraq. I’ve made the decision that life is too short, and I cannot stay closeted anymore. I have to come out. I sent my dad an email that basically said: ‘Hey, I understand if you hate me and don’t ever want to talk to me again, but this is who I am: I’m gay, and I love you.”

This is where stories like these often go very, very badly, especially given father and son’s deeply embedded, shared histories in the military. This one did not.

“He sent me an email back,” said Matt. “It still gives me goosebumps when I think about it, but the line was: ‘The best part about being a parent is you’re allowed to give your children unconditional love.’

“And at that moment, when I read that, I felt like a (bleeping) idiot, because I had spent years of my life in turmoil about this decision to come out. And in one sentence, my dad told me that I never had anything to worry about in the first place. He was always going to love me.”

He was 25.

Emily was not surprised to see Matt’s dad show up at the play that night.

“I mean, he came from two and a half states away to see a play about a shark,” Emily said. “I think that is a testament not only to Matt, but also to Matt’s dad and to the mutual respect they have for each other. I think that comes from Matt being true to himself. And that bleeds over into his daily life. Because if you treat Matt well, he’s going to treat you well.

“And if you don’t treat him well … he’s still going to treat you well.”

‘The best part about being a parent is you’re allowed to give your children unconditional love.’ – U.S. Army Senior Sgt. Jim Radcliffe

A ‘Good’ dose of laughter

Matt Radcliffe grew up in a suburb about 40 miles north of Houston and fell in love with live performance in junior high school when he was cast in a short Neil Simon farce called “The Good Doctor.”

“I played a sailor who is asking a writer to pay him if he drowns himself,” he said. “Our theater sat maybe 400 people, and it was packed, and everyone in the theater was just laughing so hard. It was the first time I had done that, and I was hooked.”

College was a bit of a farce for Radcliffe, too. By then, his father had transitioned from the Army to a traveling job selling currency-counting equipment – at a time when there was not a lot of currency for his own family to count. “I remember riding along with my dad in the car, listening to him tell stories as he played Rush Limbaugh on the radio,” Matt said. Ahh, the 1990s.

When Matt graduated from high school, Jim had an offer for his son. “He said: ‘Hey, I will pay for you to go to college if you pay for the textbooks,’ and I said, ‘Heck yeah, let’s do this.’”

Matt’s time as a theater major at Sam Houston State was short, however. “Because when my little brother graduated from high school, my dad told me, ‘Hey, I can only afford to pay for one of you, so now you need to figure it out for yourself.’”

Instead, Matt made a consequential decision.

Springs Ensemble Theatre company president Matt Radcliffe (Photo by Jeff Kearney)

“My only option was to take out student loans or join the military,” said Matt, who knew three things: He wasn’t a great student, he didn’t want to be stuck with student loans, and all he wanted to do was theater.

So, of course, in February 2005: He joined the Army.

Wait, what?

“Being the brilliant 19-year-old I was at the time, I was like, ‘You know what? I will go in as a military police officer – and that will give me some experience to inform my art,’” he said. “And even though the war was going on in Iraq, I thought I wouldn’t have to go there, because I’ll be a military policeman. … Right?”

Wrong. After completing basic training, Radcliffe was assigned to Fort Carson, which is what first brought him to Colorado. “Then I got assigned to a military police platoon attached to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team in the Fourth Infantry Division, and they were training to go to Iraq. So, my brilliant plan did not formalize the way I thought.”

In the theater, we call this an unexpected plot twist.

But, hey, Matt said: “I did get experience to inform my art.”

Staff Sgt. Matthew Radcliffe provides security for a member of the Striker Brigade command team during a patrol through the Adhamiyah District in northern Baghdad, Aug. 14, 2008. Radcliffe was a team leader with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3rd Special Troops Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Multi-National Division – Baghdad. (Photo by Sgt. Zachary Mott) — Staff Sgt. Matthew Radcliffe provides security for a member of the Striker Brigade command team during a patrol through the Adhamiyah District in northern Baghdad, Aug. 14, 2008. Radcliffe was a team leader with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3rd Special Troops Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Multi-National Division – Baghdad. (Photo by U.S. Army Sgt. Zachary Mott)

This is not a rehearsal, er, drill

Radcliffe was deployed to Iraq twice. The first time, in 2005, was for one uneventful year. The second time, in 2008, was different. He was assigned to the personal security team for the battlefield commander during the Battle of Sadr City – the last major battle of the war in Iraq. For Radcliffe, that meant six months of sustained combat operations. Which is to say – hell.

Afterward, Radcliffe got some rest, relaxation, a promotion – and a diagnosis of Complex PTSD, mostly centered around survivor’s guilt.

Indelible visions of carnage. Flashbacks on loop replaying a dozen close calls. Like standing in spots where someone would be blown up 10 minutes later.

“So all of that together just kind of crushed on me when I came back,” said Radcliffe, who got into therapy – a lot of therapy. “A big part of which is centering yourself and trying to find peace in the moment and forgiveness for yourself,” he said. “To me, there’s something very healing about that.”

Sgt. Matt Radcliffe, a native of Conroe, Texas, assigned to 3rd Special Troops Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Multi-National Division - Baghdad, provides security during a patrol in the Adhamiyah District of Baghdad. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. William Greer) — Sgt. Matt Radcliffe, a native of Conroe, Texas, assigned to 3rd Special Troops Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Multi-National Division – Baghdad, provides security during a patrol in the Adhamiyah District of Baghdad. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. William Greer)

Part of Radcliffe’s therapy was theater. One of his first plays in Colorado Springs was “A Steady Rain” a gritty 2011 drama at SET co-starring Emily. They played lifelong best friends and Chicago cops whose bond is shattered after a routine domestic-disturbance call leads to a catastrophic police failure. (Think Jeffrey Dahmer.) It was Radcliffe’s first professional leading role, and he found it to be a brutal, cathartic and exhilarating experience at once.

Radcliffe and Emily are now leading SET into 2026 with a daring and unsparing lineup that includes “Frozen,” a (not Disney!) play that explores the mind of a child killer. At a time when safety sells, these two are certainly setting SET apart from the rest.

“We like to say that SET is intimate, hard-hitting theater,” Radcliffe said. “We’re not necessarily here to sell tickets – although we love selling tickets – but we come together as an all-volunteer company and put on plays that we feel like need to be told.

“And in some ways, you could call us an anti-dinner dinner theater. Because, you know – you’re eating a flatbread pizza while you’re watching ‘Frozen.’”

Matt Radcliffe, left. and Steve Emily in Spring Ensemble Theatre's 2011 staging of 'A Steady Rain.' (Emory John Collinson) — Matt Radcliffe, left. and Steve Emily in Spring Ensemble Theatre’s 2011 staging of ‘A Steady Rain.’ (Emory John Collinson)

I asked Radcliffe where he is now at in his recovery.

“So, one of the things they talk about in therapy is that there’s a flip side to post-traumatic stress, and they call it post-traumatic growth,” he said. “You never forget the things that happened, but I’ve been able to put those things in their place and use them as perspective. I feel like those things are part of me in a way that has helped to make me a better person. And hopefully that translates to the work I’m doing in the theater – and in life in general.

“So, overall, I’m doing really well. And I’m lucky in that sense because there are a lot of veterans who aren’t – and that sucks.”

Note: The Denver Gazette True West Awards, now in their 25th and final year, began as the Denver Post Ovation Awards in 2001. Denver Gazette Senior Arts Journalist John Moore celebrates the Colorado theater community throughout December by revisiting 30 good stories from the past year without categories or nominations.

Springs Ensemble Theatre/Coming up

Jan. 29-Feb. 15: “The Children,” by Lucy Kirkwood
April 2-19: “Frozen” (not the Disney musical), by Bryony Lavery
June 4-21: “POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive,” by Selina Fillinger