ALL
ABOUT
STEVE
The most surprising fact about me, may not be that I am a playwright, actor, singer, and also an accomplished painter, chef, designer, filmmaker and standup comedian, but that I am a late diagnosis ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). This life-long struggle to overcome countless traumas was emotionally crippling yet fueled my creativity and offered a unique perspective on life, and the need to develop effective coping skills.
Lucid visualizations and complex problem solving are a hallmark ASD characteristic so I first developed 3-D visual skills receiving a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where I also took playwriting classes in their famed drama department. An exchange year in Lausanne, Switzerland benefited me becoming fluent in French.
For a year after graduation I studied at George Romero’s Pittsburgh Filmmakers before moving to Los Angeles to work as a film art director. On the coast, I quickly decided to commit to acting, spending three years studying at The Lee Strasberg Institute, which was very helpful in understanding relationships in the ‘real world.’
There, I performed in a workshop production of my first full-length Hey, Picasso! though several companies also performed my first short play Day One, I missed the writing on the wall to become a playwright and hurled myself further into filmmaking, studying screenwriting at Writer’s Boot Camp with founder Jeff Gordon, where I wrote several feature films, including My Guy, Lunch With the Devil and The First Gentleman. As a member of Filmmakers Alliance, I wrote, produced and directed several shorts, most notably Limbo, which screened at the Tiburon, Asheville and New Orleans film festivals.
I later changed side hustle getting a Pro Chef certificate to open a catering business, keeping busy working for my filmmaker friends. A few years later I changed directions and became a resort wear designer for my own line, ST MARTIN. But after five years that business was not successful, and having been financed through my house, 2008 hit me hard. I experienced a devastating loss, akin to what many endured in 2020. Although recovery took a while, I found light at the end of the tunnel.
Living in New York since the spring of 2012 focusing on theater, I took opportunities to hone my writing skills with director Sam Gold and noted playwrights Will Eno, Annie Baker and Josh Harmon, and my acting skills with Scott Freeman and Tony-winner Reed Birney.
My short plays Breeders Cup, Genius, and A Year of Mondays were staged through Love Creek Productions. Musical Chairs was read as part of 2014 Chelsea Rep Festival, and the short, Handsome, had a 2015 reading at Casa Beverly. The play tran-si-tions was a semi finalist for the 2014 Vittum Prize for best new play and 2016 Great Gay Play and Musical Festival, both in Chicago. The short, The Glove, was selected as part of Equity Library Theater’s 2017 Playwrights Festival and was published by Art Age Publications the same year, and charrette had its first public reading at The Dramatists Guild. As an actor, I have appeared on Mad Men, True Blood and Boardwalk Empire, and besides performing in several Off-Off Broadway plays, in 2015 I fulfilled a dream to play the role of 'Schultz' in the Obie-winning play Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker.
After years away from the stage due to a bout with depression, where the medications made memorizing more than a page impossible, I triumphantly returned in October 2023 in a NY THEATER FESTIVAL production of my play MUSICAL CHAIRS in the role of the acerbic, Bernie.