Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tom Misuraca. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Tom, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
The most meaningful project I’ve worked on has been being writer-in-residence for Roaring Epiphany Production Company (RepC).
Their mission is to promote inclusion in the arts. They are dedicated to educating, promoting, and casting those who would normally be a minority in the theatrical community. They use an inclusive casting method featuring artists of all abilities, especially those who would usually be excluded from professional performance opportunities due to their disabilities.
Though located in NYC, they were one of the benefits of the pandemic lockdown. I was able meet with the staff and attend rehearsals via Zoom.
In 2018, they produced my short sci-fi play, FALLING BODIES, for their Sci-Fi night. Producer, Rj VerChaud, liked both my piece and my easygoing working personality. He reached out soon after the show and discussed working together again. Unfortunately, we both got too busy to plan anything. Then… the pandemic.
Rj reached out to me and another writer, Steven Hayet, and asked if we would write some plays for RepC to perform on Zoom. After a couple of meeting, “A Night of Steve and Tom” was confirmed for January 2021. Steven and I wrote two one act plays each, and they were cast with RepC actors and directed by Rj, Jillian Liebman and Andrea
DelBenne. The show had a wonderful turnout and the actors enjoyed performing in their pieces.
RepC was excited to get started on another project. This time, Steven and I suggested we write plays for the actors specifically. Find out what kind of characters they’ve always wanted to play. We created forms with some questions for them to fill out. Then we created two new plays apiece, featuring our interpretations of these characters. So came about “A Night With Steve and Tom 2: This Time, It’s Personal”. It went up in May of 2021 with a few new cast members and the same directing team.
For “A Night With Steve and Tom 3: Awkward Encounters, People are Weird!” Steven and I returned to form writing two one act plays each. This time, Rj and Jillian opted to produce and bring in guest directors: Liz Pegg, Brandon Scott Gilliard and Bucky Buckner. Further expanding our RepC family. By now, we were a fine oiled machine and we put up a fun show in October of 2021. By then end of the third show, I was happy to report that every member and friend of RepC was kind, fun and committed to their art.
As the pandemic lockdowns were coming to an end, the desire was to return to more live theater. But RepC wasn’t going to let my living in Los Angeles stop me from being part of the group. I was able to visit New York City a couple of times and meet with Steven, Jillian and Rj. We’ve discussed expanding our outreach to including mentoring and perhaps writing workshops. There’s even plans to bring some of the pieces we created to life on stage.
Mission wise, RepC is doubling down on inclusiveness. They believe “talent comes in many shapes and forms, and we want to ensure there is space for all of it.” They’ve established RepC University, a program for those who want to take their theatrical acting skills to the next level.
Earlier this year, I was able to visit during a rehearsal of Steven Hayet’s HUGO SAVES CHRISTMAS IN JULY. It was the first time I got to met a few of the actors in person. Not only was it wonderful to see how genuinely excited they were to meet me (and vice versa), I was amazed to see that on stage (even during a rehearsal) their talents and enjoyment of their art shined bright.
I look forward to seeing them bring more of my words to life.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
For as long as I could put a pen to paper, I wanted to tell stories. Even before I could write, I’d draw pictures of superhero stories. And in elementary school, any time I had a chance to write something creative, I let my imagination fly.
By the time I reached high school, I knew I wanted to be a writer. At that time, I hoped to be the next Stephen King. But when it came to college, I was worried that studying creative writing wasn’t the best choice for a career. So I enrolled in Emerson College with the idea I would study journalism. Thank goodness they had a degree in writing, publishing and literature that felt more like my calling. I was able to take creative writing classes along with professional and screen writing.
During my senior year, my advisor suggested I take a class in Desktop Publishing because it sounded interesting. There I learned all the early versions of Mac software, including predecessors of layout programs and Photoshop. Little did I realize this would turn out to be my career while I wrote on the side.
Soon after graduating Emerson I moved to Los Angeles. At first I thought about writing for the film and TV industry. After dipping my toes in those waters, I realized it wasn’t for me. Day job wise I focused on marketing and graphic design. At night, I let my imagination run wild.
My first short story, IF YOU LOOK AT IT, YOU WILL DIE, was published in Emerson’s Hyena Magazine. Within a few years, I had over 80 short stories published in literary magazines such as Byline, Thema and Art Times.
I wrote and ghost wrote three original novels based on comic book characters from Image Comics. Then my vampire parody novel, LIFESTYLES OF THE DAMNED, was published by James A. Rock in 2009.
Though having a book published was a dream come true, something about it felt unfulfilling. I wanted to feel that my words had an impact. That’s when I took a slight detour into theater. Over 150 of my short plays have been produced and stage read in almost every major city in the US as well as the UK, Canada, South Korea, Japan, England and Ireland. I’ve won multiple judge and audience favorite awards.
During the lockdown, my ten-minute play, THE REST OF THE STORY, was the first place winner of the Carlow Little Theatre Society’s One-Act Playwriting Festival in Ireland. The following year, it went on to win first place in the Storefront Theatre’s Playwriting Competition in North Carolina.
Within the span of ten years, I’ve had thirteen original full-lengths plays produced across the country. My musical, GEEKS!, about the San Diego Comic Con, has been produced twice in LA, once in San Diego and both Off-Off-Broadway and Off-Broadway in 2019.
I’ve won the Las Vegas Little Theatre New Works three times (2014, 2019, 2022). My middle win, FIGMENTS, will be produced by Force of Nature Productions this November. Force of Nature produced my play MASTERS OF THE DARK REALM in 2019, which will be published this November by Next Stage Press. My superhero nursing home play, GOLDEN AGE, has won numerous awards, including the Robert J. Pickering/J.R. Colbeck Award for Playwriting Excellence. This year, my play, IN DOGS WE TRUST, placed second.
I’ve been fortunate to have great working relationships with LA-based theater companies like Force of Nature Productions, Write Act, EST and Actor’s Workout Studio. As well as Tehachapi Community Theater and some San Diego based companies like Scripps Ranch Theatre and Clairemont Act One, This year my work returns to The North Park Playwrights Festival. I am a member of the Dramatist Guild, the Los Angeles Alliance of Playwrights and First Stage L.A., where I served as President of the Board for four years.
I have also been working with The Decameron Project, who have been turning many of my short plays and stories into short films. And we just produced our first, of what we hope will be many, one-minute play festival at the Victory Theatre in Burbank.
Meanwhile, my graphics/marketing company, Ink & Pixels studios, continues to flourish. We currently maintain website for a local fabric for framing seller Frank’s Fabrics, the Pasadena Apple Premier Partner Di-No Computers, and film distributors Picturehouse. I also create marketing materials for comic book variant cover artist Mike Mayhew.
My longtime client is CVS specially pharmacy, for whom I write comic books for kids with hemophilia and sickle cell disease. It’s exciting to fuse my two callings with this one client.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
There are many rewards in the theater world, but the biggest is being there to see my work performed live. To hear an audience’s reaction is an amazing feeling. To know what you wrote evokes laughter or gasps. And to hear people discuss the story and characters at intermission and post-performance makes all the hard work feel worthwhile.
Another wonderful reward of theater is collaborating with other talents. I’ve been fortunate to work with many fantastic directors and actors who care about my words and want to do them justice. While working on a production, we become a little family and I am always honored to see how hard they work to make sure the end results are the best they can be.
And to stay connected with some of these talents as I move on to the next project is another bonus.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
My mission in writing has always been to create pieces that speak to or for those who’s voices don’t get heard often enough. Be it the LGBTQ+ community and/or geek and goth culture. I want to tell stories about characters that some may see as “unusual” but show them in situations that all people have to face. To showcase that there is a string of humanity which connects us all.
But none of this can be done if I’m not entertaining an audience or reader. So I am driven to tell exciting and funny stories with characters that are multi-dimensional. I could never hit an audience over the head with a message. I want them to come experience a culture they may have never experienced before and enjoy every minute of it. And if it gives them something to talk about after the show, all the better.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.tommiz.com
- Instagram: @tmisuraca
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tom.misuraca/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommisuraca/
- Twitter: @GeeksMusical
- Youtube: @tommisuraca2212
- Other: Substack: https://substack.com/profile/13729548-thomas-j-misuraca?utm_source=profile-page Stage32 https://www.stage32.com/profile/357130
Image Credits
Ervin Fang