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Current Projects

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2023

-- Grateful to have filmed a featured role opposite Marco Pigossi in the feature film, Best Place, directed by Marco Calvani and due to be released this year. 

-- The script for Just a Broadway Baby...the Cabaret is complete and we will be seeking funding soon. 

-- My second documentary film, Artists at the Edge, is currently in pre-production and I have been awarded a Shawna Foundation Grant, Provincetown Cultural Council Grant and Arts Foundation of Cape Cod Grant for the film. 
 

-- My short documentary film Just a Broadway Baby: Mary Ellen Ashley has been named an "OFFICIAL SELECTION" in 18 festivals in the US and Italy. It was awarded BEST PICTURE at Oregon Documentary Film Festival where it celebrated its World Premiere, Best Documentary Short at New York Long Island Film Festival (NYLIFF), The Chain NYC Film Festival and Upstate NY Film Festival as well as Outstanding Short Documentary at Art of Brooklyn Film Festival. I was awarded BEST DIRECTOR of a Documentary Short at Vesuvius International Film Festival and the Indie Soul Special Recognition Award at Boston International Film Festival (BIFF). The film was nominated for Best Documentary at Bergen International Film Festival of NJ, Best Documentary Film at Texas Short Film Festival and Best Documentary Short at Green Mountain International Film Festival. It was also named a Semi-Finalist at London Indie Short Festival and Florida Shorts. It was named a SEMI-FINALIST at Flickers' Rhode Island International Film festival (an Academy Award eligible festival lauded as "one of the best International and Top Ten Short Film Festivals in the country." It also celebrated its Cape and Islands Premiere when it screened at AMP: Art Marketplace Provincetown. Most recently the film screened at The 37th Annual Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival (FLIFF). It is also now part of the permanent archives at TOFT at The New York Public Library of the Performing Arts.  PLAYBILL ARTICLE

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In my forty years in the biz I've had the great honor of cajoling Robert De Niro to laugh between takes on Being Flynn; sung with the incomparable Patti LuPone in Don't Monkey With Broadway and had lunch with the late Danny Aiello to discuss his interest in my play The House of Nunzio. I was in a workshop of Go-Go Beach with Gavin Creel directed by Stafford Arima and had the pleasure of working with Michael Greif (NYTW), Gemze de Lappe (ArtPark), and RSC director Maurice Daniels. I performed under the guidance of Tony, Grammy and Emmy Award winning composer Charles Strouse on both the North American Premiere of I And Albert, and a production of Rags. I had the good fortune to star in a regional commercial for Attorney Tom Sparks which debuted during Super Bowl LII (2018) in the Providence, RI and Western MA Markets on NBC and for which, I won a Gold Telly Award! The commercial was just renewed in 2022 for a fifth year! 
 

I was a Guest Star on the Fox series The Jury, playing Forensic Expert Robert Johnson opposite the late Bruno Kirby; co-starred in a concert of Kiss Me Kate at Kleinhans Music Hall starring Michele Ragusa and have been nominated for a couple awards: El Gallo in The Fantasticks (nominated for a 2013 Pryer Award for Best Actor in a Musical) and Manos in Opa! (nominated for MITF 2008 Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Musical). I've received critical acclaim for my work Off-Broadway and regionally; I've worked on some great little films and a smattering of TV; I've sung on several demo CD's of new musicals and starred in several World and National Premiere's including The Imaginary Life of the Street Sweeper August G in Los Angeles. In 2020/21, I performed in several virtual productions and several Zoom readings including roles in two new plays by Candace Perry: No Surrender and Kinfolk, both of which were filmed for presentation by Preservation Hall. I was honored to be the Associate Producer and Stage Manager and also play the cameo role of William Bradford for the Campfire Quorum adaptation of THE WITCH (an all-female Pilgrim fantasia in the woods) as part of the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival 2021 after playing Smee in the Launch Fundraise for CQ in the Spring of 2021. See some photos of me as Smee in Provincetown Magazine. I'm also featured in the book, Legendary Locals of Orleans County, which always makes me chuckle.

As a writer, my play A Flower in Autumn, had its World Premiere in Chicago in 1993. One of my other full-length plays, The House of Nunzio, was named a semi-finalist for the Twenty-Sixth Annual Mildred and Albert Panowski Playwriting Award, The 2003 Mill Mountain Theatre New Play Competition and, after mentorship from the late Joseph Bologna (and some re-writes), the 2016 Road Theatre Summer Playwrights Festival. Most recently, Nunzio was named a Festival Winner at the First Annual Playwright Festival at Barnstable Comedy Club. My One-Act Play, The Days After, was selected for the Dramatists Guild Footlights Series in May of 2021. My microplay, A Revolution, was included in the One Minute Play Festival (#1MPF) presented on Zoom and produced by one of the participating theaters - Know Theatre of Cincinnati. Two of my plays, Remembering When I Used To Remember, and For Old Times' Sake were selected for the Almost Adults LGBTQ+ Online Theater Festival produced in Sante Fe, New Mexico premiering on Zoom and Facebook Live (one in 2020 and one in 2021). I've written and adapted numerous children’s stories including a Ten-Minute adaptation of A Christmas Carol entitled Old Mr. Scrooge which was published in 2007.

I was the first Industry/Professional Liaison at NYU's TISCH School of the Arts and proud to say that one of my former students from my HS Summer Program is Tony Award Winner, Nikki M. James! I was also the Education Coordinator for Second Stage Theater, Program Coordinator for Arts Horizons, Associate Director and Education Coordinator at The Hudson Riverfront Performing Arts Center, Co-Founder of The Emerging Artist's Project, Inc. and Founding Artistic Director of All Seasons Theatre Company. I was the Manager of Research Administration for The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and a Marketing and Events Associate at The Dana Foundation. I

served on the Founding Board and was the Development consultant for Sonnet Repertory Theatre and have also consulted for a variety of other arts organizations and non-profits including: The Westchester Philharmonic, Casa 0101 Theater, KJK Productions, Mardalzur Entertainment and The Provincetown Theater. I was most recently Director of Development for Outermost Performing Arts Center/WHAT on Cape Cod. I am the creator and Executive Director of P.I.E. (Projects In Education) Story TheatreTM which has been produced from coast to coast since 1991 where it debuted in New York City's Central Park. PIE was also named the resident theater company at North Pier Festival Market in Chicago, was part of the assembly program offerings at Arts Horizons, made its Los Angeles Premiere through Casa 0101 Theater and most recently celebrated its Massachusetts Premiere at schools, libraries and theater venues throughout Cape Cod.