September 9 – October 12, 2008
Playwright Tom Dudzick
Often referred to by theatre critics as “the Catholic Neil Simon,” Tom Dudzick has created a series of semi-autobiographical comedies that have been performed in theatres from New York to Los Angeles and dozens of cities in between. His plays have broken the box office records at Buffalo Studio Arena, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis and Chicago’s Northlight Theatre. A native of Buffalo, New York, Tom was born over a tavern in 1950 and received his early theatrical training creating musical comedies for Buffalo’s extensive dinner theatre industry. He managed to consistently cast himself in the lead role, thus garnering critical acclaim as “Western New York’s premier comic actor.” In the 1980’s Tom relocated to New York, left performing behind and focused on writing. Within a few years he landed his first Off-Broadway play: Greetings! a Christmas-themed family comedy produced by the legendary Arthur Cantor and starring veteran film and television actor Darren McGavin. The Los Angeles Times described Greetings! as “a wonderful, wacky look at how cleverly a mixture of Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Age philosophy can – in the right hands – flick on the electricity.” The play is now a holiday favorite, appearing annually in theatres all over the country. For his next play, Tom dipped into his own childhood. He semi-fictionalized his family and renamed them the Pazinski’s, called the play Over the Tavern and turned it into what Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune called, “one of the biggest grass-roots successes in American regional theatre of the last few years.” The hilarious and touching play created such interest that Buffalo Studio Arena commissioned him to write a sequel, employing the same characters ten years older, which Tom entitled King o’ the Moon. This comedy has been performed to great success in major cities such as Pittsburgh, Chicago and Los Angeles. Tom has created an “Over the Tavern Trilogy” by writing yet a third play about the Pazinski’s, set in the infamous Blizzard of ’77. It is entitled The Last Mass at St. Casimir’s. Tom’s most recent play, Don’t Talk to the Actors, premiered in 2007 at Buffalo’s Studio Arena Theatre, and receives its West Coast Premiere at The Laguna Playhouse. Tom lives in New York with his wife Holly Caster, and their children, Charles and Emma.
