Tony Tsendeas
Baltimore, You Have No Idea
Director
Tony Tsendeas is a Baltimore-based actor, director, writer, and teacher whose career spans more than three decades of professional theatre, film and television, playwriting, and arts education. His work includes Helen Hayes and London Stage Magazine nominations, performances across the U.S. and Europe, and longstanding artistic affiliations with several of Baltimore region’s leading theatre companies.
Tony was a founding member and Artistic Director of the critically acclaimed Action Theater Company, named Best Theater by Baltimore Magazine. In residence at Baltimore Theatre Project, Action also toured regionally and internationally, presenting Beckettland - A collection of short plays by Samuel Beckett in a ghost carnival setting - at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where Tony received a Best Actor nomination from London Stage Magazine. The company was subsequently signed by impresario Hans de Visser for a nine-city tour of the Netherlands.
Following Action, Tony served as an artistic associate with the Baltimore Shakespeare Company, directing Othello, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). As an artistic associate with Rep Stage, he appeared in multiple productions and directed I Am My Own Wife. He received a Helen Hayes Award nomination for his direction of Rep Stage’s production of David Davelos’s Wittenberg. With Symphonic Stage Shows, his roles ranged from Beethoven to Sir Isaac Newton, with performances in Denver, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.
Favorite stage roles include Jerry in The Zoo Story, Teach in American Buffalo, Clive in Cloud 9, Buckingham in Richard III, Claudius in Hamlet, Caliban in The Tempest, Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, and Edgar Allan Poe in The Poe Show. At Annapolis Shakespeare Company, Tony appeared as Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady, Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Chebutykin in Three Sisters. Film, television, and voiceover credits include The Wire, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Fall Before Paradise, Great Books, The Learning Channel, Discovery Channel, and HBO’s Autopsy.
Tony’s produced plays include Frank the Bodysnatcher, Poe and all the others Now That’s Funny, The Buddy Deane Scene, Next, and The Adventures of Felix, which received a playwriting award from the Maryland State Arts Council. He also developed Look Alive Baltimore 2: 1850–1950, a living-history installation presented across multiple city museums for the Baltimore City Office of Promotion and Tourism.
Tony is a longtime member of the Theatre and Film departments and TWIGS faculty at the Baltimore School for the Arts. He also offers private and group acting instruction through Tsendeas Studios.