I went to college and fumbled through a half dozen majors while spending my days and nights in the theatre, working on whatever I could. The theatre club became my church, where big ideas were gospel and collaboration was our communion. I settled into dual Psychology & Theatre majors before I fully realized that the two disciplines were the same thing from different angles: for every big idea in psychology there was a pile of plays that had already proven the same. I needed to make theatre.
I moved abroad. I spent a few years with no fixed address: Prague, Greece, Western Africa. I was a theatre practitioner working undercover as an English teacher to pay my way. I attended productions in languages I couldn't speak to see if I could follow the story. (This would hugely influence my later work as a director and designer.) I moved to Ireland to study Irish theatre, and decided to buckle down and focus: I then spent a decade in pursuit of fancy degrees to craft a viable career. I worked, I studied, and I made theatre.
That I became a director feels obvious in hindsight, but was hard to identify in real-time. I simply wanted to do everything, and to make any facet of any show that I could get my hands on better. I needed to make theatre, so my repertoire of hats expanded along the way: director. designer. educator. SDC member. KCACTF respondent. SDC Directing Initiative Chair.
So that's Theatre Tommy. I also love bicycles. Bikes are under-appreciated revolutionary machines that are powered by people and require only motivation and calories to make them go. Just like theatre.
SUNY Dutchess Community College