Oldcastle Theatre Company has had a special place in my heart for over 20 years. I first worked with Oldcastle Theatre Company in the late 1990s at the old Bennington Center for the Arts, in a production of the musical Bells Are Ringing. I returned the following year and appeared in Company and The Man Who Came to Dinner. In the summer of 2001, I worked as Company Manager and appeared in one of my favorite productions ever, Forever Plaid. This was also the summer I met my wife, Sarah Grabowski (now Stith). She was an admin assistant for the company and an assistant stage manager on several productions. Sarah moved to New York City with me in 2002 and we were married later that year on a beautiful October afternoon on Prospect Mountain in Woodford.
Sarah and I lived in Brooklyn until 2009, where we had our daughter Zoe. Then we made a huge life shift and moved to Boulder, CO where I began studying theatre in graduate school at the University of Colorado Boulder. Our second child, Owen, was born in Boulder while I was in grad school. I completed my studies, earning a Ph.D. in Theatre in 2014 and stayed in Boulder for a few years, working as an adjunct at the university. In 2016 we made another huge life change when we moved to San Antonio, TX where I am currently an assistant professor of theatre at Trinity University. I teach courses in acting, voice & speech, musical theatre history and performance, among others. If you’ve never been to San Antonio, it’s a beautiful and culturally vibrant city and for a couple of Yankees, we’ve really fallen in love with San Antonio. However, the best part is that we get to come back to Bennington every summer to visit family and work at Oldcastle. I’ve been lucky enough to direct recent productions of 39 Steps and Brighton Beach Memoirs and am honored to have been given the responsibility of helping usher Oldcastle and the Bennington Performing Arts Center through this period of transition and beyond. I can’t wait for our doors to re-open and to bring live, professional theatre back to Bennington!
Fun facts about me: I ran the New York City Marathon in 2007. I sword fought with Placido Domingo on stage at the Metropolitan Opera. I played the recurring role of Bobby the Bartender on the daytime soap One Life to Live. My favorite activity is hanging out in the sun room with my family. I have recently appeared in several Tik Tok videos with my teenage daughter!
