Welcome to the official website of Actor/Author
Damon DiMarco.

UPDATES

July 1, 2008. SHOCK & AWE: Soldiers' Voices from Iraq wins runner up
for best full-length play in Reverie Productions' 2008 Next Generation
Playwrights Contest. Congratulations to Richard Martin Hirsch who won
for his play The Rigors of Happenstance.
May 28th, 2008. Come see the Reverie Productions Next Generation Playwriting Contest finalist reading of Damon’s full-length play SHOCK AND AWE, directed by Julie Hamberg. SHOCK AND AWE is based on interviews from Damon’s book HEART OF WAR: SOLDIERS’ VOICES FROM THE FRONT LINES OF IRAQ (see below). Location: the Bruce Mitchell Room at ART/New York Spaces, 520 8th Ave (between 36th and 37th Street), third floor. To reserve, email: reserve@reverieproductions.org.
April 31st, 2008. Damon played the District Attorney in the backer’s audition for Walter Robinson’s new musical “ONE” at the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre. In attendance: Stephen C. Byrd and Alia Jones, producers of Broadway’s smash-hit revival of “CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF” starring Terrence Howard, Phylicia Rashad, and James Earl Jones. “ONE” is a Hip Hop retelling of the life of Moses in modern-day New York City. Keep your fingers crossed for it!
April 18th, 2008. Damon did a voice over as a
sports announcer on ONE LIFE TO LIVE.
Listen to Bill Esper discussing THE ACTOR'S ART AND CRAFT on NPR's
The Diane Rehm Show. Click here.
April 15, 2008. Damon and Bill Esper will be at the Drama Book Shop in Manhattan (250 W. 40th Street) for a talk and book signing. Call 212-944-0595 for time.
April 13, 2008. Damon and Bill Esper will be at Esper Studios, (208 W.
37th Street, NYC ... visit www.esperstudio.com) for a book signing
open to all. 5 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
April 8, 2008. Book release for THE ACTOR’S ART AND CRAFT, co-written with Bill Esper.
April 7th, 2008. Damon's play SHOCK AND AWE advanced to the finals of Reverie Productions' Next Generation Playwriting Contest. SHOCK AND AWE is one of four finalists in the full-length play category. This year's Next Generation Contest saw 235 submissions from 35 states and 6 countries. The finalists will all receive readings in mid-May. For more information, click here.
Students from Vista High School in Vista, California will perform material from Tower Stories: An Oral History of 9/11 at the annual California State Thespian Festival, April 4 - 6.
March 24, 2008. Damon and writing partner Adam Feingold held a reading of their new screenplay THE BIG BREAK at The Barrow Group Theatre in NYC.
On March 5, 2008 Damon will appear as a guest lecturer at Camden County College with his friend, illustrator and survivor of the North Tower, World Trade Center, Tom Haddad to deliver a presentation titled “Voices from the Towers: The Experiences of World Trade Center Survivors in Their Own Words.” To view the press release, click here.
Late February, 2008. Damon’s play SHOCK AND AWE just made the semi-finals of the Reverie Productions’ Next Generation Playwriting Contest.

Excerpts from Damon's play, SHOCK AND AWE, were added to THE FIRE DEPT's acclaimed collage of scenes called AT WAR: AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHTS RESPOND TO IRAQ on JANUARY 28 & FEBRUARY 4 - 7:30 at The Bleecker Street Theatre.

The event featured a rotating repertory of celebrity hosts and performers including Bebe Neuwirth, Bobby Cannavale, Josh Hamilton, and Daniel Sunjata, as well as Fire Dept company members Janeane Garofalo, Denis O'Hare, Gloria Reuben, and David Strathairn.

Guest Speakers at the Post Production Discussion included:
Writer, Activist, and Iraq War Veteran Paul Rieckhoff;
Iraqi Poet, Novelist, and Translator Sinan Antoon;
Playwright, screenwriter, and actor Jessica Blank; and
Damon DiMarco

Click here for a press release.

SHOCK AND AWE placed in the finals of the Princess Grace Theatre
Award. A film, ALLEGIANCE (based loosely on the play) is under option to producers Ilana Levine and Mary Stuart Masterson. John Leguizamo is attached.

Material for both the play and screenplay evolved from interviews conducted with U.S. Veterans of the War in Iraq for Damon's book Heart of War: Soldiers' Voices from the Front Lines of Iraq (Citadel, 2007). To order copies of the book, click on the picture of the book below.

Damon appeared as a featured guest on "How it Was: Voices of 9/11",
airing on the National Geographic Channel beginning November 13, 2007. To order copies of Tower Stories: An Oral History of 9/11 (foreword by Tom Kean, Chairman of the 9/11 Commission), click on the picture of the book below.
Damon completed an 8 episode recurring role on ONE LIFE TO LIVE as Officer Prescott, who works with Lt. John McBain to solve the murder of Dr. Spencer Truman.

MORE GOOD NEWS!

Anchor Books/Random House will release Damon’s fourth book in April of 2008. Click on the picture of the cover below to advance order copies from Amazon.com.

The Actor’s Art and Craft is a collaboration with world renowned acting teacher, William Esper. Bill is arguably the world’s leading expert on the Meisner Technique. Damon studied under Bill at Rutgers Universirty’s Mason Gross School of the Arts.

The Actor’s Art and Craft features a foreword by David Mamet. The book provides a wealth of information for professional actors, acting teachers, students, and beginners by exploring First Year Meisner work in the context of a story. It supplements Sandy Meisner’s Meisner on Acting (also published by Random House) and breaks new ground thanks to Bill’s fifty-plus years of applying, evolving, and celebrating Sandy’s work.

For more information on the William Esper Studio, visit www.esperstudio.com.

". . . I've spent my life working with actors. To do so one needs but a few, essential tools, the mastery of which is the challenging work of a lifetime: be patient, be precise, be terse, encourage, suggest, praise, listen. I was first exposed to these tools through the example of Bill Esper, and I am very grateful."

David Mamet

". . . Every serious actor who dreams of becoming a first rate artist must read this book!"

Calista Flockhart

"A veritable magnum opus on acting from a master teacher."

Olympia Dukakis.

". . . It's the best book on the craft of acting that I have ever read."

Mary Steenburgen

". . . This book is a wonderful journey into Bill's process. It gives the novice and even the veteran actor a vocabulary and guidelines on how to solve the acting problems that any text presents."

Sam Rockwell

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The revised, updated edition of Tower Stories: an Oral History of 9/11 is
now available from Santa Monica Press. (www.santamonicapress.com). The new book features follow up interviews with key contributors and never-before seen photos. For more information, visit www.towerstories.org.

"This book defends the understanding, as also the horror, of that day. We are indebted to Mr. DiMarco for the effort and for the editorial acuity."

William F. Buckley, Jr.

"I hope this book remains in print for a very long time to come, because everyone should read it. Our children should read it. With regard to 9/11, we-as a people-cannot allow a myth to take root. We must ground ourselves in our pain if we have any hope of moving forward. And move forward we must."

Thomas Kean, Chairman, 9/11 Commission (From the Foreword of TOWER STORIES)

"This is oral history at its finest."

The Richmond Post-Dispatch

"The only widely available oral history of 9/11 from the perspective of New Yorkers, this monumental work (originally released by Revolution in 2004) has been updated for the sixth anniversary of the national tragedy. In the weeks following the World Trade Center attack, DiMarco, in the tradition of Studs Terkel, wandered Manhattan collecting the stories of Gothamites who survived the collapse of the towers, came to help or simply bore witness-whether from elsewhere in the city, across the country or overseas . . . DiMarco's contribution to the memory of that horrific day is enormous; the testimonies collected here form an amazing, one-of-a-kind account."

STAR REVIEW from Publisher's Weekly

". . .unique, a multitude of firsthand experiences preserved as few other 9/11 books have done. This second edition is expanded with many more photographs and with updates about a number of the witnesses interviewed. Recommended for all public and undergraduate libraries."

Margaret Heilbrun, Library Journal

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Damon’s second oral history which chronicles the experiences of U.S. Veterans of the War in Iraq. Heart of War: Soldiers’ Voices from the Front Lines of Iraq is available for advanced order now on Amazon.com. The book will be available in stores in April 2007. These stories are so incredible that Damon turned them into a full-length play; Shock and Awe was read last summer at New York’s Public Theater.

Heart of War is dedicated to Doug Martin - Damon’s high school civics teacher and track coach (shown with Damon left). A Vietnam Veteran, Mr. Martin has guided thousands of students at Steinert Memorial High School to finer understandings of Government and Law Related Experiences, as well as the need to carbo-load with a DeLorenzo’s tomato pie after a 5K race. For more information on this project, and to participate in an on-line forum about the War in Iraq, visit www.iraqoralhistory.com.

". . . DiMarco has assembled 18 Iraq war testimonies of soldiers ranging from a West Point-educated tanker who was early into Baghdad to truck drivers who have been targets for improvised explosive devices. Those interviewed include a high proportion of highly intelligent people, whose essential work, which often involved dealing directly with Iraqi culture, is seldom publicized, and they exemplify a panoply of those returning from Iraq
- career military, disgruntled and life-disrupted recalled reservists, victims of broken marriages and of contamination by depleted uranium particles, and male and female enlistees who have finally filled their military contracts and are home, they hope, to stay. DiMarco's respect for his interviewees and sidebars on weapons and tactics (some rather chilling and even appalling) further distinguish this addition to Iraq war literature."

American Library Association

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Out of Bounds, Damon’s collaboration with Roy Simmons, is now
available in trade paperback from Carrol & Graf (November 28, 2006).

When New York Giants coach Ray Perkins stated, “Roy Simmons just
might be the best athlete on this football team,” no one could have
guessed that in just four years, Simmons would earn his living as a
baggage handler at Kennedy Airport.

The second NFL player ever to come out as gay and the first ever to
come out as HIV-positive, Simmons was an up-and-coming star who quit
football after just four years rather than be exposed as gay. Out of
Bounds tells his story — from his rape at age 10 to being plucked from his
poor Southern background to join the NFL, from his first taste of pro
football fame and sudden enormous wealth to his fast-paced, no holds barred
nightlife of heavy drugs and countless sexual encounters with women
and men.

Simmons roller-coaster life peaked in the late 1980s with his
appearance in the Superbowl. Ultimately, reckless living left him
penniless, friendless, and on the brink of suicide. Finally in 1992, he
tapped the courage to come out as gay on national TV, and as HIV-
positive 10 years later — an act which set him on the path towards
sobriety and self-acceptance.

out of bounds simmons
Hard Cover Soft Cover

Kirkus Reviews calls Out of Bounds:
"A story ...full of raw vitality that too often found auto-combustive expression - before, during and after his days in the NFL...Blisteringly honest portrait of a man fencing with his self-destructive instincts."

For more information on Roy, visit www.sugarbear.info.

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Damon DiMarco's books on Goodreads