Stephen P. Driscoll ’73, is a graduate of University of Massachusetts Amherst with a bachelor’s degree in Theatre and Dance from the College of Humanities and Fine Arts. He directed the dance program at MIT for 15 years and concurrently was Associate Director and Resident Choreographer of the Opera Company of Boston. He was also Director and Choreographer of Opera New England. He served as resident photographer at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival through the 1980’s. A proud member of SAG?AFTRA and the Actors Equity Association, he recently played Shylock at UMass Amherst’s Department of Theater’s production of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, a role he first played at age 14 in his own adaptation.
His first professional job after college was with the National Mime Theatre. He also performed with the Boston Repertory Theatre, Consuelo Atlas' Expansions Dance Company, Off-broadway, and on national tours. For the past decade he has been a board member of the British American Drama Academy and provides a yearly scholarship for a UMass Theatre student to attend its Midsummer in Oxford program.
After many years of generous support to the College of Humanities and Fine Arts Theater and Dance programs, Stephen has created a bequest in his estate plan to support the Stephen P. Driscoll Musical Theater Endowment. This endowment will help fund the production of musical theater at UMass and prioritize collaborative productions with Music, Dance and the Department of Art. This endowment, he hopes, will enable such cross-disciplinary work.
In addition to the above, Driscoll has made his mark in Democratic Party Politics. In 1996, he and former Congressman Barney Frank founded National Stonewall Democrats. Driscoll served as its Co-Chair for 10 years. He's been a member of the Massachusetts Democratic Party's Executive Committee and Co-Chair of its LGBTQ Caucus since 1998. In the apocryphal election of 2000, he was the first openly gay male in the United States Electoral College. During this period he was also Co-Chair of Bay State Stonewall Democrats for 2 4-year terms.
Driscoll is actively involved with the American Humanist Association and the Freedom From Religion Foundation and was a delegate to the World Humanist Congress in Reykjavik, Iceland. He is the owner of NewProWrestling and has had a career in professional wrestling, as a referee, a ring announcer, a wrestler and now promoter, here in the US and in the UK. Stephen resides in Pembroke, Massachusetts and in Wilton Manors, Florida with Robert Tocci, his spouse of 45 years (and his processional partner at their First Communion) where he grows a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, and continues his 15 year battle with cancer.
Photo: UMass Dance Major Founder, Professor Marilyn Patton, Rick Guimond, Stephen Driscoll, and long-time Dance Program accompanist Tony Crescione