Tony Speciale is the founder of Plastic Theatre—conceiving, coauthoring and directing the Off-Broadway world premiere of Unnatural Acts (Classic Stage Company—Drama Desk Award nominee, GLAAD Media Award nominee). From 2015-2018, Tony served as Artistic Director of Abingdon Theatre Company, an off-Broadway theatre company dedicated to developing and producing new work. NYC: Mister Miss America (AFO/Rattlestick); The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey (Dixon Place, Westside Theatre); A Midsummer Night’s Dream featuring Bebe Neuwirth, Taylor Mac, Christina Ricci and Steven Skybell (Classic Stage Company); The Boy Who Danced On Air, The Dork Knight, The Gentleman Caller (Abingdon Theatre Company); and Matthew-Lee Erlbach’s Handbook for an American Revolutionary (The Gym at Judson). Regional: Angels in America: Millennium Approaches & Perestroika (St. Louis Rep); The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey (National Tour: Kirk Douglas, Old Globe, Bay Street, Hartford Stage, Laguna Playhouse, Philadelphia Theatre Company); Harmony by Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman (Alliance Theatre, Ahmanson Theatre); and Romeo and Juliet (Actors Theatre of Louisville). Tony has developed new work at Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, The Goodman Theatre’s New Stages Festival, Sundance Theatre Lab at Mass MoCA and The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival. His productions have also been seen at the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF), HERE and La MaMa. As a solo writer, his play Delirium was presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where it was honored with a British Writers’ Guild Award. Tony spent four seasons at Classic Stage Company as the Associate Artistic Director where he helped found, directed and taught for their award-winning education and outreach initiative, The Young Company. A former Actors Theatre of Louisville apprentice, he studied musical theatre at The Boston Conservatory and holds an MFA in Directing from Columbia University. He is currently an assistant professor in the theatre department at SUNY New Paltz, and is the proud recipient of a Princess Grace Theatre Honorarium and Suzi Bass Award.