Theatre
Creator / Writer / Director
Riccio likes to throw visual razor blades at his audience.
—The Chicago Sun-Times
Riccio has directed a serious, richly textured piece of stagecraft that incorporates haunting visual and aural effects and finely realized ensemble movement into an engrossing theatrical ritual. His work evokes a sense of magic and myth that goes beyond the usual standards of “theatricality” back to the origin of performance as an expression of awe and wonder.
—The Chicago Reader
Thomas Riccio loves to experiment. His reputation is so good that when he starts to dabble, people ought to pay attention.
—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
Professional Directing
Betawulf / Playwright-Director / Organic Theatre, Chicago
Publicity shot, Titus Andronicus, Organic Theatre, Chicago
We are bombarded by so much information, much of it external, superficial, and lacking a depth of consideration. Our lives increasingly sped up, mediated and structured, and ordered by technology, determining who and what we are." he says. "Holy Bone is about being human again, considering who we are on a daily journey. We are now cosmic hunter-gatherers who must be alert, agile, mobile, and, when necessary, subversive.
Riccio likes theater and teaches it, but he says that's not really what Dead White Zombies are up to. Theater, along with ritual, performance art, installation, meditation, media, sound, and drama therapy, are all languages we apply," he says. We live in a mobile and transitory world, and the form of theater—people sitting in the dark watching the illuminated mind—is a bit of a relic.
—from an interview, Dallas Observer
Titus Andronicus, by Shakespeare / Director / Organic Theater, Chicago
Dead White Zombies, Dallas, Texas
Some People / Playwright-Director / Project X, Dallas
Sardaana / Devised-Director / Sakha National Theatre, Siberia
Il Ronzio della Mosche, by Dario D’Ambrosi / Director / Teatro di Roma
Betawulf / Devised-Director / The Cleveland Lab Theatre
Bosoms and Neglect, by John Guare, / Director / The Cleveland Play House
Blue Jelly, writer, Director, Installations (in development)
Holy Bone, Writer, Director, Installations
DP92, Writer and Installations
Karaoke Motel , Writer and Installations
Bull Game, Writer and Design
T.N.B., Playwright and installations
(w)hole, Writer and Installations
Flesh World, Writer and Installations
blahblah, Playwright and Design
Project X, Dallas, Texas
Some People, Playwright and Design
So There, (one-act), Playwright and Design
Orange Oranges, (one-act), Playwright and Design
StoryLAB, Dallas, Texas
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, playwright
Alpha Male, Playwright
Kartasi: The Traveler, Playwright
There Is Never A Reference Point, Playwright, Devised
Organic Theater Company, Chicago
Little Caesar, Adapter Playwright
The Conduct of Life, by Marie Irene Fornes
Titus Andronicus, by Wm. Shakespeare (featuring John C. Reilly)
Betawulf, Playwright, Devised
Rubber City, Playwright
The Stranger in Stanley's Room, by George Freek
Kiss It Good-Bye, by M. Miner & Scott Jacobs
Akron, Playwright
The Cleveland Play House
Bosoms and Neglect, by John Guare
Christmas on Mars, by Harry Kondoleon
End of the World, by Arthur Kopit
Sea Marks, by Gardner McKay
Teatro Argentina, Rome, Italy
Il Ronzio Della Moche, by Dario D'ambrosi
Sakha National Theatre, Yakutsk, Russia Sardaana, Devised
La Mama ETC, New York City
La Mulata, by Estaban Fernandez
The Buzzing of Flies, by Dario D'ambrosi
Le Boursedes Artistes, Zurich, Switzerland & European Tour
The Big Deal, Playwright with Leslie Felbain
The Country Wife, by Wycherly / Director / Publick Theatre, Boston
New York Theatre Workshop
The Grand Hysteric, by Sheldon Rosen
The Box, by Sheldon Rosen (w/ David Hyde Pierce)
American Theater of Actors, NYC
Leather Heart, by Frank Megna
Publick Theatre, Boston
The Country Wife, by William Wycherly
Playwrights Platform, Boston
The Body Parts, by Matt Witten
Cabaret Dinner Theater, Cleveland
Follies: The Better Than Nude Revue, Playwright
Fairbanks Drama Association
Athena, by Jason Hodges
Pipedreams (and statewide tour), Playwright
Why The Lord Come To Sand Mountain, by R. Linney
Tuma Theatre / Alaska Native / Fairbanks, Alaska
Utetmun (Going Home), by Paul Jumbo
The Child From the Sea, Devised
Qayaq: The Magical Man, Devised
The Eagle's Gift, Devised
Inua, Devised
Naam/Gen Eehu, by Evelyn Alexander (Athabaskan elder)
Yup’ik Arnaq, by Theresa John (Yup’ik elder)
Emandulo / Devised-Director / Kwasa Group, Duban, South Africa
Lul Theatre, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Andegna (The First) Ensemble Developed
Natal Performing Arts Council, Durban, South Africa
Makanda Mahlanu, Devised
Kwasa Group, South Africa
Emandulo, Devised
Metamorphosis Theatre, St Petersburg, Russia
Tour to Ukraine and Ural area
Shadows From The Planet Fire, Devised
Center For The Arts, Lusaka, Zambia
Imipashi (The Spirits), Devised
Karamu House, Cleveland, Ohio
City Cuts, Devised
Cleveland Laboratory Theater
Betawulf, Devised
Dallas Museum of Art
Dada Cabaret, Devised
Akron, Ohio, “the once great, now blighted rubber capital of the world,” is the backdrop for T. Riccio’s Rubber City, a surreal comedy about the last day in the life of an Elvis impersonator who happens to be married to a Marilyn Monroe impersonator.
American Theatre Magazine
University Directing
The University of Texas at Dallas
Flu Season, by Will Eno, / Director / University of Texas at Dallas
Blink, Laura Kim & Thomas Riccio
Dream Play, adapted from Strindberg
The Magic Flute by Mozart / Director / The University of Alaska-Fairbanks
Blue Jelly, Playwright
Phoebe in Winter, by Jen Silverman
Flu Season, by Will Eno
Government Inspector, by Gogol
Miss Julie, by Strindberg
Woyzeck, by Buchner
Dream Play / Director and adapted from the play by August Strindberg / University of Texas at Dallas 2023
Tragedy: A Tragedy, by Will Eno
R.U.R., by Karel Capek
Kartiasi, Playwright
Fernando Krapp Wrote Me This Letter, by Dorst
The University of Alaska Fairbanks
Kartasi / Director-Playwright / University of Texas at Dallas
Kartasi: Origins, Playwright
Lysistrata, by Aristophanes
Touch, by Toni Press-Coffman
Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry / Director / University of Alaska-Fairbanks
Successful Life of 3, by Marie Irene Fornes
Mud, By Marie Irene Fornes
Alice In Wonderland, by Andre Gregory
Yahoo Nation, Playwright
Seventy Scenes of Halloween, by Jeffery Jones
The Magic Flute, by Mozart
The Three-Penny Opera, by Brecht & Weill
Bacchae, by Euripides
Comedy of Errors, by Shakespeare
Tartuffe, by Moliere
Much Ado About Nothing, by Shakespeare
Ubu Roi, by Alfred Jerry
The Seagull, by Anton Chekhov
You Can't Take It With You, by Kaufman & Hart
Marat/Sade, by Peter Weiss
Curse of The Starving Class, by Sam Shepard
Marat/Sade / Director /University of Alaska-Fairbanks
University of Alaska Museum Summers 1996-2003
Northern Inua, Playwright
Massachusetts Institute Of Technology
Ghost Sonata, by August Strindberg
Prometheus Bound, by Aeschylus
Massachusetts College of Art, Boston
Rhythms, by Brenda Walcott
Boston University
Sizwe Bansi Is Dead, by Fugart, et al
Terrible Jim Fitch, by James Leo Herlihy
The Lesson, by Eugene Ionesco
Cleveland State University
Seduced, by Sam Shepard
Tricks, Playwright
Cuyahoga Community College, Cleveland
Hoodoo, Adapted from Johann Nestroy
Yahoo Nation / Playwright-Director /University of Alaska-Fairbanks