Tom Zingarelli
Tom ZIngarelli is one of the best actors and funniest human beings I have ever had the pleasure of working with. A true theatre professional, Tom's career as an actor and director includes working with such notables as Jason Robards, Elaine Strich, Teresa Wright, Mason Adams, Jack Klugman, Brett Somers, Fred Hellerman and James Noble. As Artistic Director of the Quick Center, Tom's vision brought an unrivaled cultural element to Fairfield for many years. When asked to provide a more personal bio than his extensive professional resume, this is what he wrote. I can do no better.- Kate
Tom Zingarelli remembers the first joke he ever told, at four years old. "A man goes into a restaurant and says, 'Do you serve crabs here?' The waiter says, 'We serve anybody, sit right down." That was the beginning of a long, sometimes distinguished - sometimes 'un-' - on-and-off-again life in the theatre.
It began in Waterbury, CT, in a freezing February snowstorm in 19??????, and continues, hopefully through his upcoming appearance with Stray Kats at the Stone River Grille. His first performances in front of anyone-but-family took place in Miss Bessie Delaney's first-grade class at Merriman School, where he performed a puppet show with Albert Cipriano. He topped himself the following year (season?) by playing George M. Cohan in Miss Gertrude Fogherty's second grade with Kathleen O'Hara, who later became Miss Connecticut. This, his first singing appearance, was a resounding rendition of Yankee Doodle Dandy. It was very successful among the second graders and cupcakes were had by all. He courageously followed this at eight years of age, graduating into instrumentation with a solo accordion performance of Lady of Spain on the stage of the renowned Waterbury Portuguese Club Hall, rented expressly for the occasion by the Domenic Mecca School of Music.
His early career (non-union, non-paying, non-viewed for the most part) reached its pinnacle in Miss Helen McCormack's (never had a married teacher in grammar school, how different those days were!) when he won the city-wide Gettysburg Address contest (coached by Merriman principal Miss Helen Flaherty (another Miss). He got to perform that speech on the Waterbury Green on Memorial Day, 19??????
This heady business took its toll on his fragile, overworked, psyche. Suffering from addiction to TV comedies, movies, cartoons, and Coca Cola, Tom entered Mother Zingarelli's rehab for a few seasons until he learned to balance stardom with studying and maintaining his grades at Margaret Croft High School. Sounds fancy and private, right? Nope, public, crowded, across town, and reached by city bus with bus tickets. Here, he burst forth on the stage when he was forced to audition for Oklahoma! by his friends, because he had access to his mother's car to drive them to rehearsals. His role, complete with solo, drew kudos from his family and friends, and got him a date for the prom in the nick of time.
On to college(s), where, on the first day of a class in Drama from Ibsen to Eliot, he was handed a script, told to read a part, and found himself in the illustrious if somewhat esoteric play, The Visit, by Friedrich Durenmatt. For the next several years, in school and community theatres, he played his heart and soul out in everything from Toys in the Attic, to The Glass Menagerie, Scapino, Walking Happy, Et Cetera, Et Cetera, Et Cetera. He credits this as the start of his real education in theatre, and the end of his education in pretty much everything else.
From then to now there followed a succession of plays, musicals, writing and directing experiences which collectively supplied a foundation from which to draw on, and grow, grow, fail, grow, almost fail, grow a little more, and more et ceteras.
Throw into the mix years as a journalist, theatre teacher, manager, producer, artistic director and theatre administrator, Tom has come full circle to acting again, voice overs, and recorded books, which brings him up to... what day is today?
Tom will appear with SKTC at the Stone River Grille, January 20-21.
