Antonio Sacre (born September 23, 1968) is an American author, solo performer, and storyteller. He writes and performs internationally, in English and Spanish.[1]
Personal life
Sacre was born in Boston, Massachusetts to an Irish American mother and Cuban father. He earned a BA in English from Boston College and an MA in Theater Arts from Northwestern University.
He acted professionally in Chicago, Illinois in the 1990s and became a member of the Redmoon Theater company. He studied solo performance with Jenny Magnus and Paula Killen and he studied storytelling with Jim May and Rives Collins.
Sacre was married to actress Missi Pyle from 2000 to 2005.[2] He married again in 2008 and has two children.[citation needed]
Author
Sacre's first children's picture book, The Barking Mouse, was published in 2003 by Albert Whitman & Company. In 2004, it was named among the International Reading Association Notable Books for a Global Society.[3] It was also featured on the Teaching Tolerance website.
His next children's picture book, La Noche Buena, was published in 2010 by Abrams Books for Young Readers, and was selected for inclusion in the California Readers Book Collections for School Libraries.[4]
A Mango in the Hand, a Story of Proverbs, another children's picture book, was published in 2011 by Abrams Books for Young Readers and was named Parents’ Choice Approved.[5] It was also selected for inclusion in the California Readers Book Collections for School Libraries.
Sacre's fourth book, My Name is Cool: Stories from a Cuban-Irish-American Storyteller, was published in 2013 by Familius Books. It is a collection of stories for young adults.[6]
As a solo performer, Sacre has written for and performed in festivals and theaters in New York City,[8] Los Angeles,[9] Chicago,[10] Washington D.C.,[11] San Francisco,[12] Phoenix,[13] and elsewhere.[14]
He premiered The Hick, The Spic, and The Chick at The Rhinoceros Theater Festival in Chicago in 1996.[15] The show went on to The New York International Fringe Festival[16][17] where it won the Best in FringeNYC Festival Award.[18]
In 1999, Sacre again won Best in FringeNYC, this time for his solo show My Penis - In and Out of Trouble, as directed by Jenny Magnus.[19] The show was revived in 2010 under the direction of Paul Stein in Los Angeles, where it won Best of the Hollywood Fringe Festival.[20]
In 2004, Sacre was commissioned by the Smithsonian to write and direct a play for children, Pochito’s Pride, for production at the Discovery Theater.[21][22]
In 2011 Sacre premiered The Next Best Thing, directed by Paul Stein, and had runs in both Los Angeles[23][24] and New York.[25][26] The show won Best of the Hollywood Fringe Festival, won a United Solo Theatre Award for Best Storyteller,[27] was nominated for the LA Weekly Theater Award for Best Solo Performance,[28] and was chosen by LA Weekly as a Top-Ten Theater Experience in Los Angeles for 2011.
Sacre's 2012 show, Let Them Eat Meat, was directed by Paul Stein and premiered at the United Solo Theatre Festival on Theatre Row in New York[29] where Sacre won Best Storyteller.[30] The show was revived the following year in Los Angeles with the Solo Collective Theatre Company.[31]
In 2015, Sacre was commissioned to write a 10-minute play for The Car Plays, performed at La Jolla Playhouse.
In 2020, Sacre performed his show, Let Them Eat Meat, as part of the HA Comedy Festival[32] in San Antonio.[33]
In 1994, Sacre started working with teachers and school districts nationwide to foster storytelling culture in schools.[45][46] In addition to performances for the students that center on drama, storytelling, and writing, he conducts teacher in-services and district-wide trainings.[47] He is committed to helping children discover and embrace their own multicultural backgrounds.[48][49][50]
From 2014-2022, Sacre served as the storyteller-in-residence at the UCLA Lab School on the UCLA campus in Westwood, CA.
^"Schedule of New York International Fringe Festival". New York Theatre Wire. 1998. Retrieved July 28, 2015. Best in Fringe Festival Award for excellence in acting in 1997 FringeNYC for his performance in The Hick, the Spic and the Chick, Sacre this year presents a consciousness-raising ritual performance offering insight into the lives and plights of gang and non-gang youth that incorporates poetry, song, drumming, fire, shrine, story and silence.
^"MY PENIS is Extended 7/15 to 8/5". Create.create.us. July 8, 2010. Retrieved July 28, 2015. This show won a Best in Fringe award for Solo performance at the New York International Fringe Theater Festival.
^"Keepers of the Word". Teaching Tolerance. 1999. Retrieved July 28, 2015. Perhaps no one better understands the need for non-English speaking students to be heard in American classrooms than Chicago-based storyteller Antonio Sacre, but he also knows that one's message is only as effective as the listener's ability to comprehend its meaning. In his work as a bilingual storyteller, he tries to communicate the importance of being able not only to speak but, equally, to understand different languages.
