Meet an Actor: Matthew Minnicino

Full name: Matthew Isaac Minnicino

Born: October 27, 1989

School: University of Virginia, Class of 2012

Have you ever been involved with Empty Chair before this event?
Joined Empty Chair Winter of 2007 (acting and editing the Winter Season production of The Taming of the Shrew)


What about this project excites you?
I'm excited for this project because I usually hate things like this -- Showcases -- but I know that a company like Empty Chair will make it a unique, cohesive, and enjoyable experience like no other. More than that, I'm really looking forward to bonding with a cast of incredibly talented people I've worked with before, but in a closer-knit setting. And this is the first time I've ever done a show for a charity.


What pieces are you working on for the show?
Vincentio; Gloucester; Orsino; Suffolk; Ferdinand


What do you love about theatre? What does it mean to you?

For me, theatre has always been about relationships. Art, at its core, is the relationship between artist and concept, between concept and audience, between audience and artist. Theatre, one of the few truly fluid, living art forms, is the purest expression of the bond between the spectator and the creator. I believe that theatre is one of the purest things in the art world if properly executed, able to use either humor or pathos to pull outsiders into a completely different world in a way that other art forms can only do in varying degrees. When I try my hand at creating theatre, I always work towards building new and powerful worlds with characters and staging, exciting, dangerous, or simply absurd. The beauty of theatre is how alive it is, how much of a risk it takes by its very nature. Onstage, I am a firm believer that every gift that can be given or accepted should be, and actors, directors, and audience members should embrace the wild variables of breathing art with open arms.



Tell us a little about you:

I was born and bred in Leesburg, Virginia, lucky enough to be brought up by two people who loved theatre and art with the same passion that I do now. I started working with Shakespeare (at parental encouragement) very early on, and was acting in it voraciously by middle school. I consider my participation the American Shakespeare Center’s Young Company a turning point in my artistic life—after performing in it from 2005 to 2008, I began a much more serious pursuit of theatre and literature. I am currently studying English Literature (with a Shakespeare/Early Modern focus) and Theatre Arts at the University of Virginia.



Career highlights:
Directing The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), playing Richard in Empty Chair’s Richard III, playing Doctor Chasuble in a UVA student production of The Importance of Being Earnest, and a career-defining double-role as a female prostitute and a lecherous septuaginarian in the Young Company’s Henry IV, Part II, under direction of Benjamin Curns. I also enjoy long walks on the moonlit beach, with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and a copy of “Troilus and Cressida.”