Tyron Jones, AS '92, '95M, is only posing for a headshot, but even his toes stay in a perfect point until the photographer stops shooting. Then they fall limp.

Jones is the consummate actor. He doesn't primp one second when the photographer asks him to pose. On cue, he smiles for 15 minutes without touching his face.

Jones may look familiar because he's come into your home as the son of a heartburn sufferer in a Pepcid AC commercial, an investment counselor in a Morgan Stanley spot, the only speaking customer in a Citizen's Bank ad, Dr. Givens on All My Children or Dr. Fleming on Another World.

This graduate of the University's Professional Theatre Training Program (PTTP) stands out in a gaggle of actors milling around on 42nd Street. His fingernails are perfectly trimmed. His teeth are perfectly aligned and his beard is evenly stubbly. He moves like a dancer and smiles like a salesman. And, he is the only person on the sidewalk who has a producer inviting him to drop over on his dinner break.

On a typical morning last autumn, Jones was bent over cafeteria-style tables in a nondescript theatre building reading Henry IV with Kevin Kline, Billy Crudup, Ethan Hawke and Tony-award-winning director Jack O'Brien.

The tourists who line up for The Lion King would never guess the narrow building across the street is the temporary office of some of Broadway's biggest stars. The cast of Henry IV worked there six hours straight each day reading scripts for the celebrity-driven production at the Lincoln Center. One floor down, actors were prepping for Rosie O'Donnell's Taboo starring Boy George.

Jones, playing the small part of Nym just eight years out of the University's PTTP, has been able to support himself without waiting on tables or taking a 9-to-5 job.

He was the lead in Kiss It Up to God, a film that snagged an award at this year's Cannes Film Festival. His screenplay Emancipation is attracting attention at film competitions. He won an Obie Award for his off-Broadway work.

He has acted in three other films, played Hamlet in Taiwan and debuted on Broadway in Judgment at Nuremberg. In between, he is one of the principals in a charity that provides books and software to disadvantaged children in New York City.

When he played Macbeth at the Classical Theatre of Harlem this year, Newsday called his performance "thrillingly palpable."

Jones says he begins thinking about where his next job is coming from the moment he snags one job because he must make a minimum salary to qualify for union health insurance.

Jones' latest film job, an "urban drama" dubbed Holla At Me is one of his hundreds of acting credits. "I'll just put it this way,'' he says, "Hopefully, it will get to DVD.

"Because of the commercials and the other acting work, I'm able to do theatre and write because I'm not working eight to nine hours a day to pay my rent," he says.

"Ty is very tenacious and a real go-getter," says Nadine K. Howatt, coordinator of public relations, marketing and development in the University's theatre department, who nominated Jones for the University's Presidential Citation for Outstanding Achievement, an alumni honor he won last year. "He doesn't wait for people to find him. He searches out opportunities. He always has numerous irons in the fire so he's not specifically just hitting the street to audition for a show. He's got his screenplay and his nonprofit organization and his theatre and his commercials. He's looking at the whole picture."

Jones says the University's theatre program and his undergraduate jobs in telemarketing, account retention and collections at MBNA helped him prepare for the grueling life of an actor.

"MBNA gave me a sense of structure. You know, get to work on time, learn how to work with people. The PTTP taught me to maintain a good balance between shows and my outside life because this work can be brutal and unforgiving," he says.?

He is president of the co-op association at the Washington Heights apartment building where he lives with his girlfriend, Jill Carlson, a Wall Street information technology exec.

Except for his mother, a retired Air Force master sergeant who flies in from Missouri to see his shows, and his dad, whose Brooklyn home was his base when he first moved to the city, Jones says Carlson is his biggest supporter.

"Jill comes to all my work. She criticizes it. She's an integral part of why I am where I am now," he says.

"This is a tough career. Every day, I have to go out and find a job," Jones says. "By virtue of being part of the Professional Theatre Training Program, I got the blueprint for working in theatre. It got me physically, emotionally and spiritually ready for the career I've taken on, and you need to be able to handle the rat race that is a career in theatre. It isn't very nurturing unless you're really in--and that 'in group' is a very small world."