Tony Cronin

Anthony (Tony)F. Cronin is a writer, director, actor, and musician based in Santa Monica, California. Cronin was born and raised in Fairfield County, Connecticut. He began working in the theatre while attending Colgate University, a leading liberal arts institution in Hamilton, New York. At Colgate, he directed and acted, and served as Technical Director for the University Theatre. Cronin subsequently worked at several regional theatres in various technical and artistic capacities before heading West to study for one year in the Master's Program at Arizona State University where he acted and directed. While doing so, Cronin realized that he wanted to write plays and tell stories on the stage. He felt the best way was to study the fundamentals of stagecraft at all levels so at graduate school he studied acting, directing, theatre history, and playwriting. Cronin then returned to New York for three years in Cornell University's Master of Fine arts in Directing for Theatre program where he took the entire actor's MFA course and then an additional year to focus specifically on directing. The prestigious MFA program accepted one director and five actors each year and all students were on paid fellowships. While at Cornell, Cronin founded and was Artistic Director for the Cornell University Summer Shakespeare Festival for three years. He also taught beginning acting, voice, and was a special lecturer on Shakespeare. In New York, Cronin worked with various off-Broadway theater companies and acted in many plays including the Staten Island Shakespeare Company and the Montana Shakespeare company. In 1999, he was hired by Gene Frankel (an early member of the Actor's Studio and especially notable in the off-Broadway scene) to help launch his new acting school. Cronin served as an administrator and teacher at the Gene Frankel Theatre and Film Workshop in Greenwich Village for three years. He directed off-Broadway and at the 2002 New York international Fringe Festival where he directed Andrew Brauer's "DryClean". Cronin relocated to Los Angeles in 2003 and has continued to work as a writer, director and actor in independent and feature films, television, and in commercials. In addition to having written more than a dozen stage plays (many of which have been produced in New York and Los Angeles), Cronin has written several screenplays, and recently completed his first novel, "Twisted". He has written for newspapers and magazines, and his poetry and short stories have been published in various literary magazines.