Tom Dudzick

Often referred to by theatre critics as “the Catholic Neil Simon,” Tom Dudzick has created a series of semi-autobiographical comedies that have played successfully in theatres from New York to Los Angeles and a hundred cities in between. His plays have broken the box office records at Buffalo Studio Arena, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis and Chicago’s Northlight Theatre.

Tom was born in Buffalo, NY (over a tavern) in 1950 and received his early theatrical training creating musical comedies for that city’s massive dinner theatre industry, always casting himself in the lead role, thus garnering critical acclaim as “Western New York’s premiere comic actor.”

In the 1980’s Tom relocated to New York, left performing behind and focused on writing. Within a few years’ time he had landed his first off-Broadway play--“Greetings!”--a Christmas family comedy produced by the legendary Arthur Cantor and starring stage and screen veteran, Darren McGavin. The Los Angeles Times described “Greetings!” as “a wonderful, wacky look at how cleverly a mixture of Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Age philosophy can--in the right hands--flick on the electricity.” The play is now a holiday favorite, appearing annually in theatres all over the country.

For his next play, Tom dipped into his own childhood, semi-fictionalized his family, called them the Pazinski’s, called the play “Over the Tavern” and turned it into what Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune calls, “one of the biggest grass-roots successes in American regional theatre of the last few years.”

The hilarious and touching play created such interest that Buffalo Studio Arena commissioned him to write a sequel, employing the same characters ten years older, which Tom entitled “King o’ the Moon.” This comedy has also been performed to great success in major cities such as Pittsburgh, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Tom has finally created an “Over the Tavern Trilogy” by writing yet a third play about the Pazinski’s, set in the infamous Blizzard of ’77, and entitled “The Last Mass at St. Casimir's.”

Tom now has a “day” named after him. By mayoral proclamation, May 5 is declared “Tom Dudzick Day” in Buffalo, NY, in gratitude for “his contribution to his boyhood community and theatre-goers nationwide."

Tom now lives in Nyack, NY with his wife Holly Caster, and their children, Charles and Emma.