Tony Blake

Tony Blake

Tony Blake was born and raised in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn and graduated from Hunter College in New York City with a degree in Theater. As an actor Tony trained at The Neighborhood Playhouse and performed both Off-Broadway and in regional theater. Among the people he has been fortunate to share the stage with have been Richard Chamberlain, Christine Baranski, Scot Bakula and Patricia Richardson. He gained his...
Tony Blake was born and raised in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn and graduated from Hunter College in New York City with a degree in Theater. As an actor Tony trained at The Neighborhood Playhouse and performed both Off-Broadway and in regional theater. Among the people he has been fortunate to share the stage with have been Richard Chamberlain, Christine Baranski, Scot Bakula and Patricia Richardson. He gained his early playwriting training at New Dramatists in New York City where his first play, “30 West”, was staged. He then moved to Los Angeles where he turned to writing full time, both for the stage and for television (to support his new young family.) He has written five full length plays and three one-acts and written over 70 hours of scripted one-hour series television. His play "Sunday Dinner" had its world premiere at Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills in 2020. HIs play “A Marriage of Inconvenience” was selected for Ensemble Studio Theater L.A.’s 2019 Winterfest Reading series and "Adamantine" was selected for EST's 2020 WInterfest reading series. Other plays have been developed and staged at New Dramatists, The Road Theater, Los Angeles, The Ruskin Theatre, Santa Monica and Pacific Resident Theater, Venice, CA. He now divides his time between Los Angeles and New York.

Plays

  • Sunday Dinner by Tony Blake
    Cast: 
    7
    ·
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: family, LGBTQ + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, dark comedy, drama
    Keyword: family, LGBTQ, dark comedy, Family Secrets, Catholic priest
    Family loyalty, sexual orientation and the Catholic Church are all in the crosshairs in “Sunday Dinner,” a heart-wrenching dark comedy. Michael Matera, a young Priest, has just flown home to inform his parents of a major life decision he feels best delivered in person. But no sooner has he arrived than his father pulls him aside to “confess” an ugly family secret; a secret that is about to help some members...
    Family loyalty, sexual orientation and the Catholic Church are all in the crosshairs in “Sunday Dinner,” a heart-wrenching dark comedy. Michael Matera, a young Priest, has just flown home to inform his parents of a major life decision he feels best delivered in person. But no sooner has he arrived than his father pulls him aside to “confess” an ugly family secret; a secret that is about to help some members of the family, but seriously harm others. Expecting absolution from his priest son that will free him of the weight on his conscience, he’s beside himself when Michael insists that revealing family secrets in the living room doesn’t qualify as confession and refuses to grant his father absolution.

    Michael ultimately must wrestle with whether or not to reveal his father’s ugly family secret, a decision he’s forced to make over Sunday dinner with the relatives that exposes other ugly family secrets, leaving the family in total disarray .

    “Sunday Dinner” leaves us with the lingering questions of whether or not the truth really does set us free and is doing the right thing worth the price when the consequences can have long lasting, crippling effects on the family structure.
  • Your Word Against God's by Tony Blake
    Cast: 
    2
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: sexual abuse, priest + 3 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: sexual abuse, priest, psychological, Catholic, trauma victim
    A woman visits the home of a retired priest under the guise of interviewing him for an article about priests who are authors, but her real intentions soon come clear. She reveals that he sexually abused her when she was 14 and he was a High School Chaplain at her school over 25 years ago. But her accusations and attacks are met by a totally perplexed priest who insists her traumatic memories have been...
    A woman visits the home of a retired priest under the guise of interviewing him for an article about priests who are authors, but her real intentions soon come clear. She reveals that he sexually abused her when she was 14 and he was a High School Chaplain at her school over 25 years ago. But her accusations and attacks are met by a totally perplexed priest who insists her traumatic memories have been conflated and she’s confusing him with another priest who worked at the school, or perhaps the uncle she claims also sexually abused her. Realizing she’s been wrong all along, she accepts his offer of a referral to a therapist until she accidentally discovers an incontrovertible piece of damning evidence that makes her realize he’s been gaslighting her all along. Enraged at having been manipulated yet again, the tables turn and the victim now becomes predator seeking an apt revenge.
  • A Marriage of Inconvenience by Tony Blake
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: marriage, religion + 2 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: marriage, religion, female empowerment, dogma
    A “Marriage of Inconvenience” chronicles the journey of a young career woman struggling to establish her independence.

    When a young Jewish career woman, SUZI ROTHSTEIN and her live-in Catholic boyfriend, TOMMY LAU finally decide to reveal to SUZI’s very religious parents that she’s living with and planning to marry out of her religion, events quickly spiral out of control leading to a violent...
    A “Marriage of Inconvenience” chronicles the journey of a young career woman struggling to establish her independence.

    When a young Jewish career woman, SUZI ROTHSTEIN and her live-in Catholic boyfriend, TOMMY LAU finally decide to reveal to SUZI’s very religious parents that she’s living with and planning to marry out of her religion, events quickly spiral out of control leading to a violent clash over dogmatic beliefs.

    The ultimate marriage causes SUZI’s parents to disown their only child and break off all communication until three years later when they suddenly and unexpectedly request to resume contact. Their first dinner together begins on good terms but quickly spirals downward as ugly family secrets on both sides get unearthed, leading to a brutal climax where SUZI finally establishes her independence from both her husband and her controlling parents.

    The result causes serious damage to the couple’s marriage and SUZI’s relationship with her parents, and the after effects leave open the question of the consequences of dogmatic beliefs and parental involvement in the lives of their adult children.
  • Adamantine by Tony Blake
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: drama, tragedy
    ·
    Keyword: racism, Stand Your Ground + 2 more
    Genre: drama, tragedy
    Keyword: racism, Stand Your Ground, guns, implicit bias
    Three friends, college professors (2 Black, brother and sister) and 1 White, (sister’s fiancé) at a Southern University discover they have very different feelings about the issue of racism and its relation to Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, ranging from militant (FAIZON) to moderate (FELICIA) to pacifist (ROBERT) with Faizon insisting the law is a dog whistle for White Supremacists.

    When...
    Three friends, college professors (2 Black, brother and sister) and 1 White, (sister’s fiancé) at a Southern University discover they have very different feelings about the issue of racism and its relation to Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, ranging from militant (FAIZON) to moderate (FELICIA) to pacifist (ROBERT) with Faizon insisting the law is a dog whistle for White Supremacists.

    When Faizon and Robert visit a local, working class Orlando bar during a break in an academic convention, they interact with three locals, and things go terribly awry in an unexpected confrontation that ultimately turns deadly and the survivors must deal with the traumatic aftermath.