Drama Career Potential

• American Ballet Theatre
• Ballet Austin
• Barrington Stage Company
• Boston Ballet
• CBS/ CBS News
• Joyce Theater
• Live Nation Entertainment, Inc.
• NY International Fringe Festival (FringeNYC)
• Second Stage Theater Company
• Walt Disney Company

• American Public University
• CUNY City College
• CUNY Hunter College
• Hofstra University
• Kent State University
• Lesley University
• Naropa University
• UCLA
• University of Pennsylvania

Ariya Ghahramani '09 had a recurring role on the HBO show The Night Of and a part in the film adaptation of Khaled Hosseini's novel, The Kite Runner.

Mel Johnson Jr. '71 (known for roles in Total Recall with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) starred in the off-Broadway play The Road to Damascus at the 59E59 Theaters in early 2015. He also appeared in Marvel’s Jessica Jones: Season 2 and performed the one-man show, Frederick Douglass: In the Shadow of Slavery.

Joe Morton is appearing in the Fox series Our Kind of People and starred in the CBS series God Friended Me. He appeared in the blockbuster summer 2019 film Godzilla: King of Monsters. He is perhaps best known as the villainous “Rowan Pope” on ABC's Scandal, a role for which he won a Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama in 2014. He has had recurring roles on many television series, including The Good Wife, Proof, Law and Order and Grace and Frankie. He starred in the off-Broadway play Turn Me Loose in the summer of 2016 about civil rights activist Dick Gregory. He played Roy Wilkins in the HBO adaptation of the Broadway play All the Way. Recent film credits include Batman vs. Superman and Justice League. He is also remembered for Terminator II, Speed, What Lies Beneath and Brother From Another Planet.

Leslie Segrete was a designer on Travel Channel’s Hotel Impossible, where she revamped and redesigned troubled hotels. She was the series host and designer on A&E’s $100 Makeover, lead designer on WEtv’s The Ugliest House on the Block, and host for the Emmy-nominated WLIW (PBS) special, Going Green Long Island. She was a carpenter and designer on TLC’s hit series Trading Spaces and While You Were Out, where she helped design, build, and execute close to 400 rooms. She co-hosts “The Money Pit,” a nationally syndicated home improvement radio show heard around the nation and on XM Sirius.

Kevin Shinick '91 (Creative Artists) is best known for creating MAD, Cartoon Network's #1 rated animated series based on the iconic humor magazine. Kevin's role as creator/producer/writer and main voice talent earned him a 2012 Emmy and Annie nomination for Outstanding Short Format Animated Program. Kevin is equally known for his work on Robot Chicken, Adult Swim's stop-motion sketch series for which he won a 2010 Emmy Award. His credits also include Marvel Comics: Superior Carnage, Avenging Spider-Man and AXIS: Hobgoblin (the latter nominated for Best Mini-Series of 2014).

On ABC, Susan Sullivan '64 played the spotlight-seeking Martha Rodgers in Castle. She had a recurring role in the Netflix series The Kominsky Method, opposite Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin. Fans also remember her from Another World, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Dharma & Greg, The Incredible Hulk and Falcon Crest.

Tia Harewood-Millington '19 is the assistant stage manager for MCC Theater's Nollywood Dreams. She was assistant stage manager on the play One In Two for The New Group theater company in New York City. Prior to graduating, she interned twice at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Jack Saleeby ‘16, Noah Silva ‘16 and Peter Charney ’17 workshopped their original musical Bright and Brave at Dixon Place, an experimental theater house in lower Manhattan in 2018. Saleeby has more recently been acting in Disney's Newsies at White Plains Performing Arts Center and in the national tour of The Wizard of Oz. In 2019, Saleeby performed with Elisa Galindez '15 in a production of the musical Head Over Heels for the Dirty Minds Theatre Company in New York City. Silva is an Equity stage manager in New York City and the facilities supervisor at Playwrights Horizons. Charney was an artistic/producing intern at The Drama League and worked in operations at Walt Disney World.

James Barbour '88 (Talent Works) played the title role in Phantom of the Opera on Broadway from 2015-2017. He was nominated for the Drama Desk, Drama League, and Outer Critics Awards for Best Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of Sydney Carton in the Broadway musical version of A Tale of Two Cities. He has starred on Broadway in such Tony Award-winning shows as Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast as the Beast, Carousel as Billy Bigelow, Urinetown as Officer Lockstock, and as Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre (Drama League Award nomination). He also appeared in the Broadway productions of Cyrano and Cats, and the national tour of The Secret Garden.

Versatile actor Fred Berman '94 stars on Broadway as “Timon” in The Lion King. He also appeared on the television program New Amsterdam and narrates on audio books, including those for the bestselling novels, The Time Traveler's Wife,  Daisy Jones and the Six, and Robin (a biography of Robin Williams).

Margaret Colin (Innovative Artists) starred as Mrs. Mullin in the 2018 revival of Carousel at Broadway’s Imperial Theater. She recently had a recurring role in the HBO comedy VEEP and in the NBC drama Shades of Blue. She starred in the TV series Gossip Girl, appeared on stage in in the American premiere of Tony-winner Dennis Kelly's Taking Care of Baby for Manhattan Theatre Club's 2013-14 off-Broadway season. She also starred in The Columnist for MTC opposite John Lithgow. Audiences also remember her for film roles in Three Men and a Baby and Independence Day.

Peter Friedman is appearing in the HBO drama Succession. He starred as Polonius in the 2017 The Public Theater production of Hamlet. He received a 2014 Lucille Lortel Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play and a 2014 Drama League Award Nomination for Distinguished Performance for his work in The Open House. For his work in the 2012-2013 off-Broadway play The Great God Pan, he received a Drama Desk Award nomination. He starred in the Hulu series The Path and in the Showtime drama The Affair. In the early 1990s he starred in the TV drama Brooklyn Bridge. He was nominated for a Tony for playing Tateh in the original Broadway production of Ragtime. Other Broadway credits include The Tenth Man, The Heidi Chronicles, Twelve Angry Men, Piaf and Execution of Justice.

Kirk Gostkowski ’05 is founder and artistic director of The Chain Theatre in Manhattan. The organization is dedicated to providing opportunities for underrepresented voices in New York’s arts community.

Julie Halston starred in Tootsie on Broadway. In 2016-2017 she starred in the play The Babylon Line at the Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center. She also appeared in a 25th anniversary concert production of The Secret Garden at David Geffen Hall and in the Broadway revivals of On the Town, You Can't Take It With You, Anything Goes, Twentieth Century and Gypsy. She had a recurring role in Sex and the City and recently appeared in And Just Like That ...

Tom McGowan '81 starred on Broadway in the revival of Kiss Me Kate in 2019, She Loves Me in 2016, and Harvey Fierstein's Casa Valentina in 2014. He played The Wizard in the musical Wicked, both on Broadway and in the national tour. He had recurring roles on many television shows, including Everybody Loves Raymond and Frasier.

Arturo E Porazzi ’73, production stage manager for Broadway, industrials and special events, has dozens of Broadway shows to his credit, among them Come From Away (2017), The Illusionists (2015), First Date (2013), Memphis (’09-12), Xanadu (’07), Chita Rivera The Dancer’s Life (’05), 42nd Street ('02-'04), Marie Christine (’99), Triumph Of Love (’97) and Victor Victoria (‘95-97).

Susan H. Schulman has directed many Broadway musicals, including the 1989 revival of Sweeney Todd, the 1991 original production of The Secret Garden, the 1998 revival of The Sound of Music, and the 2005 original production of Little Women. She was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Direction for The Secret Garden and nominated for a Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for Sweeney Todd. She heads the graduate directing program at Penn State University. 

Lydia Gladstone ‘74 played Grandma Tzeitel in the acclaimed Yiddish-language production of Fiddler on the Roof, directed by Joel Grey and presented by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene.

We can’t talk about Hofstra alumni on the stage without mentioning Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding, the groundbreaking interactive theater show, based on characters created by Hofstra drama alumni Mark Nassar ’81 and Nancy Cassaro ’81. The first commercial production of Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding took place in February 1988, and the show continued for 10 years in Greenwich Village before moving to Times Square, where it ran for another decade. There were also productions in cities around the country and internationally. Many alumni have been part of the first Tony and Tina weddings as well as numerous revivals.