What happens when you give a Broadway Actor a Badge and send him to jail?
Within the opening lines of “Actor With a Badge” will be your opportunity to observe from the outside how one artist of the theatre made a second attempt at life on the inside. Not inside a play, a movie or a television show, but inside the classrooms, clinics and jails along every whistle stop on the notorious School-to-Prison Pipeline. And that’s just your entry point into this story. What will grip you further and never let you go is how a former Broadway and Hollywood actor, Tommy Demenkoff, dismantled his perceived failures at life and reckless pursuit of ShowBiz stardom, to reconstruct for you the discoveries he made assembling the toolkit of his Artistic Practice. Attempt after attempt, inside a vast landscape of challenging systems and dangerous environments, this self-anointed Theatrician boldly redesigned his career, unleashed his brash ego, and risked his life and everything he believed in attempting to reach those who were struggling inside the darkest and most broken systems that humanity struggles to change. The result is a love letter to the theatre and its undeniable ability to heal when just one actor shows up.
A graduate of Ithaca College, Tommy Demenkoff debuted in the original New York productions of both Godspell and Grease before heading off to Los Angeles. A role in Luis Valdez’s historic Zoot Suit at the Mark Taper Forum led to several TV and Film appearances like Fantasy Island, Eight is Enough, Battlestar Galactica, General Hospital and yes, the cult classic Surf Nazis Must Die. Eventually the reckless lifestyle of ShowBiz collapsed upon him as he also battled a host of destructive vices eventually leading to abandoning an initial dream of stardom. Leaving Hollywood, without a plan, he began a 25-year teaching career which turned out to be along the legendary School-to-Prison Pipeline. Here, as a self-anointed Theatrician, Tommy performed a series of new roles within Academia, Arts Education, Nonprofit Administration, Therapeutic Communities and Big City Government. His final tour as New York’s first Director of Arts Education for close to 8,000 Detainees in all city jails landed him on Rikers Island as a member of the New York City Department of Correction. Producing daily classes, workshops, and events for General Population, Tommy also introduced a revolutionary system-wide playwriting project for those inside solitary confinement as the centerpiece of his artistic practice and humanitarian response to incarceration. Even through a Global Pandemic. An Actor with a Badge.
