THE BEGINNING
Tony's professional career began with the musical Grease! At age 9, Tony and one of his best friends Michael Parker attended a Broadway tour of Grease together. They attended wearing identical leather jackets and enthusiastically participated in a pre-show dance contest conducted by one of the show's stars Eddie Mekka (Carmine of the Laverne & Shirley show) which they won. Tony's comment after being on stage was that he felt so 'at home' up there. The stranger sitting next to Tony told him that auditions were being held the following week for a local theater company's production of Grease. That patron was the wonderfully sweet Dawn Donaldson who shall always receive credit (as promised!) for "discovering" Tony. After the show, Tony and Michael met the stars backstage (including Cindy Williams of Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley) who complimented them on their pre-show dancing.
Tony's love of music and performance actually began much earlier, though, when his parents noticed him gesturing and dancing at the slightest notes of music before he could even talk. They gently nurtured his love of music with an array of musical toys to play with which later interested him in taking formal piano lessons at age 7. As a baby and toddler, his mother would dance with him to different types of music every night before dinner (and sometimes they still do!). His parents encouraged his love of puppets and his love of conducting puppet shows for his little friends. His mother helped by making a puppet theater for Tony to conduct his shows.
Tony began attending professional musical theater productions at age 3 with his mother which started a tradition of special mother/son adventures. He always insisted on wearing a suit and sharing what he called a "remantic" (romantic) dinner with his mother prior to the shows. The first musical he attended was the Broadway tour of "42nd Street". Their annual holiday tradition was attending The Houston Ballet's "The Nutcracker", sometimes with his father in tow. Even though Tony's father prefers bonding with his son through their love of baseball, he proudly supports all of Tony's interests and has attended every local production in which Tony has ever been (once even after suffering a painfully dislocated shoulder prior to a show. He postponed treatment until after the show so that he wouldn't miss Tony's performance. Admittedly, he said that was the longest show he's ever watched!).
Tony began his theatrical career under the direction of Maggie Ford at Cypress Academy of Performing Arts in Houston, Texas when he was cast in Grease, one of his favorite musicals. In spite of his young age, he was cast as one of the four 'greaser boys' along with three teen actors and given the reassigned solo song "Those Magic Changes" which he performed while strumming his junior-sized guitar. He gave a convincing performance as a young ruffian and, through this production, his love of stage performance was born.
Tony has since performed regularly in many community and school productions as well as Equity theater productions in Houston and Los Angeles. Some of his prior roles include Billy Flynn in "Chicago", Billy in "Sherlock Holmes", Oliver in "Oliver!", Sonny in "Grease", The Wizard in "The Wizard of Oz", Spanky in "The Little Rascals", Charlie Brown in "Snoopy!" Rumpelstiltskin in "Rumpelstiltskin" and Fritz in "The Nutcracker". One of his favorite roles was playing Billy Flynn in "Chicago", a role he hopes to reprise on Broadway in the future.
 
(L) Actress Cindy Willams and Tony. (R) Actor Eddie Mekka and Tony. Photos taken backstage,
Aug. 2000
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