TOMMY IAFRATE
Tommy Iafrate is a stage director, music director, arts educator, and musician currently serving as the Director of Musical Theatre at Binghamton University, where he is an Associate Professor in the Theatre Department. He has directed and musically directed productions around the world and continues to freelance in these arenas outside academia.
Tommy has worked in arts leadership positions as the Producing Artistic Director of Illinois's Festival 56, Iowa’s Clinton Area Showboat Theatre, and Rhode Island’s Kaleidoscope Theatre. He has directed, music directed, or performed with Infinity Theatre Company, the Kennedy Center, the Barnstormers Theatre, the Cider Mill Playhouse, Thunder Bay Theatre, Goodspeed Musicals, and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. His favorite performance experience was touring the United States, Canada, Korea and Japan in Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall's Cabaret.
In 2018, Tommy was a guest Musical Theatre Director in Residence at the Beijing Dance Academy in China. He previously toured several cities in China with the Open Door Theatre Company, music directing Next to Normal and directing Seussical. As an instrumentalist, he performs on piano, saxophone, clarinet, flute, and oboe. He is also a proud member of the Musical Theatre Educators Alliance, the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, the Golden Key International Honour Society, and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.
Tommy currently serves as the Coordinator of the Musical Theatre Intensive (MTI) for Region II of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival and has attended four national festivals at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.: in 2012 as a directing fellow through the SDC Directing Initiative, and the last three festivals as the music director/mentor for MTI fellows. He is also on the Executive Committee of the Musical Theatre Educators’ Alliance. He holds an MFA in directing from Western Illinois University and a BA in musical theatre and in physics from Rhode Island College.