Greeley, Colorado
Tom McNally has worked as a university professor and professional director and actor for more than forty years. At the time of his Hall of Fame induction he was the coordinator of acting and artistic director of the Little Theatre of the Rockies at the University of Northern Colorado, where he’s been since 1988. From 1981 to 1988, he was an M.F.A. acting teacher and coordinator of undergraduate studies at Penn State University, and from 1974 to 1981 he was a professor, chair, and artistic director of the May Bonfils Center for the Arts at Loretto Heights College in Denver.
Mr. McNally holds a B.A. from Denver’s Regis Jesuit College and an M.F.A. from the University of Denver. In addition, he has extensive training in the New York City studio system with such giants as Uta Hagen. He considers his mentors to be Jagienka Zych and Helen Moraska of Poland’s Warsaw Academy.
Mr. McNally’s primary teaching areas have been acting and directing. He has directed and acted in more than two hundred productions. He first served EdTA as a guest artist at the International Thespian Festival in Muncie, Indiana. Since that time, he has presented a remarkable three hundred workshops for EdTA members and Thespians in some sixteen states. He is a seven-time presenter at EdTA’s annual National Conference for teachers and has given sixteen keynote addresses at the National Conference and other EdTA events. In 1992, he was presented EdTA’s Founders’ Award.
He is the author of Acting: The Active Process. He lives in Greeley, Colorado, with his wife Sheila, and is honored to call his daughter Gillian, a national and international youth theatre professor, a colleague.
