Tony Taccone
| Tony Taccone | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 4, 1951 Queens, New York, USA |
| Occupation | Theatre director |
| Years active | 1981 to present |
| Spouse(s) | Suellen Ehnebuske (divorced) |
| Website | http://www.berkeleyrep.org/about/staff.asp#taccone |
Tony Taccone (born July 4, 1951) is an American theater director, and currently the artistic director of Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley, California.
Tony Taccone was born on July 4, 1951 in Queens, New York, to an Italian-American father and a Puerto Rican mother. They encouraged their children to go into the arts; their daughter became a photographer, and both sons found careers in theater.
Taccone, attended Boston College as an English major. He frequently participated in poetry readings, which led to performance art. After marrying, he accompanied his wife to the University of Colorado and became involved in the drama department. His acting troupe asked him to fill in for their sick director and stage the next play. Taccone called the gig the "closest thing I ever had to an epiphany," and permanently went behind the curtain. After graduating, Taccone enrolled in UC Berkeley in the doctoral directing program, where he became close friends with fellow student Richard E.T. White.
The one thing you cannot do in comedy is to go for the laugh.
When White became artistic director of the Eureka Theatre, a converted warehouse in San Francisco's Mission District, he invited Taccone along. In 1981, White left and Taccone replaced him as the artistic director. It was there that Taccone began his partnership with Tony Kushner, who he commissioned to write what Kushner thought would be a short chamber piece called Angels in America. Over Taccone's tenure there, the Eureka's annual budget grew from $60,000 to $780,000 as their subscriber number grew to 2,400 and the repertory moved to a new building because their theater was destroyed by an arsonist. Despite the growth, they required $1.3 million in order to stay afloat, and talks began that the repertory could not sustain its artists with growing families. Taccone was extremely reluctant to leave, but announced his resignation in 1988.
That year, Taccone became the associate artistic director of Berkeley Rep under Sharon Ott, again replacing White. Right around that time, Angels in America, which ended up becoming a two-part, seven-hour epic, was becoming a national sensation critically and otherwise, and a boon to the Eureka. Four years later (in 1992), he and Oskar Eustis co-directed the world premiere of the complete work at the Mark Taper Forum. In 1997, Berkeley Rep won a Tony for Best Regional Theater. That year, Ott left to become artistic director of Seattle Repertory, and Taccone became full artistic director, where he has staged more than 35 shows, including the world premieres of Continental Divide and Culture Clash in AmeriCCa. He has collaborated with Kushner on six projects. Their latest piece featured designs by beloved children’s author, Maurice Sendak: Brundibar debuted at Berkeley Rep and then traveled to Yale Rep and the New Victory Theater in New York City. Taccone made his Broadway debut with Sarah Jones’s Bridge & Tunnel. He also staged the show’s record-breaking off-Broadway run at Culture Project, workshopped it for Broadway at Berkeley Rep and directed Jones’ previous hit, Surface Transit. Taccone frequently works at Ashland’s Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where he has directed Coriolanus, Othello, Pentecost, the American premiere of Seamus Heaney’s The Cure at Troy, and his production of David Edgar’s Continental Divide, which also played at the Berkeley Rep and in England at Birmingham Rep and London’s Barbican Centre. His other regional credits include noted theatres such as Actors Theatre of Louisville, Arizona Rep, La Jolla Playhouse,San Jose Rep, Seattle Rep and San Francisco’s Eureka Theatre, where he served six years as artistic director before coming to Berkeley Rep. Taccone has served on the faculty of U.C. Berkeley, sat on the board of Theatre Communications Group and acted as a regional representative for the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.
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