In addition to being one of the world’s great masters of mime, Tony Montanaro was a renaissance man—teacher, director, philosopher, theologian, storyteller, comedian, poet, jester, dancer, seeker, sage, magician. Over the course of his 75 years, Tony inspired thousands of students and entertained audiences all over the world, but he never really grew up. When appropriate, he acted just like a kid and everyone in the room joined in.

Tony’s Bio
Copied, Edited, and Updated from 
“Mime Spoken Here: A Performer’s Portable Workshop”
by Tony Montanaro with Karen Hurll Montanaro
Tilbury House Publishers, 1995

Tony, the eldest son of working-class Italian Americans, grew up in the small New Jersey town of Paulsboro. His first stage experience was in school productions. From the “Nickel Club” in grade school to high school musicals and college productions, Tony’s talent was apparent. At that time [1930s], no one in Paulsboro knew what “mime” was, but everyone noticed Tony’s uncanny ability to make the invisible world visible. The director of a high school production of Our Town by Thorton Wilder watched in amazement as Tony pushed an invisible lawnmower across the stage. “You make people see things that aren’t there!” he said.

Tony at Columbia University, New York City, 1949

Tony studied romance languages and theater arts at Rutgers University and Columbia University. He received a bachelor’s degree in drama from Columbia in 1952. While still a sophomore at Rutgers, Tony saw the film Les Enfants du Paradis (The Children of Paradise). The story is set in Paris in the early 1800s, just as the mime movement was gaining momentum and prestige. Some of the world’s top mimes, including Jean-Louis Barrault and Etienne Decroux, performed in the film. (Little did Tony realize that he’d be studying mime with Decroux in Paris a few years later.)

This film marked a turning point in Tony’s life. He was transfixed by the story, the mime, and the climate in which the story takes place. When the film was over, he left the theater and performed the illusionary walk right there on the pavement. His technique was perfect, despite having seen the illusion just once in the film a few moments earlier. His friends were amazed.

In the years following his graduation from Columbia, Tony spent three summers performing with the Grist Mill Playhouse, a professional summer stock company in Andover, New Jersey, and worked professionally as a puppeteer with Suzari Marionettes for two of their performing seasons. But the attraction to mime grew more and more powerful. When Marcel Marceau made his debut at the Phoenix Theatre in New York City in 1956, Tony was in the audience. This performance was the deciding factor in Tony’s becoming a mime. He was impressed with Marceau as a performer, but he also thought, I can do that!

Determined to study with Marceau, Tony went backstage at the Phoenix Theatre to introduce himself. Marceau was pleasant, but had no time for auditioning young mimes. Tony followed him to Philadelphia. The master must have been impressed by Tony’s impetuosity and persistence because he told him to get up on stage. “Show me what you can do,” Marceau said. That was that. Tony was suddenly on stage auditioning for Marcel Marceau.

During this audition, Tony did a brash and innocent thing—he performed one of Marceau’s sketches, “The Butterfly.” If Marceau had any objections to this, it was now too late to voice them; he sat back to watch. At the end of the sketch, Tony saw that the master was genuinely moved. With tears in his eyes, he told Tony that he must never perform that sketch in public again. He quickly added, “There is only one mime in the world who can teach you.” Tony received a full scholarship to study mime with Marceau in Paris and he was on a boat to France a few months later.

Adjusting to Paris was difficult for Tony. He struggled with the language and lived in abject poverty for about six months. During this time, he studied with Marceau and with Marceau’s teacher, Etienne Decroux. He learned a lot from these masters, but sheer survival was his most demanding taskmaster. A few guardian angels appeared to help Tony out of dire circumstances. Louis Thomas, Marceau’s stage manager, let Tony stay in the Chambre de Bonne of a building he rented. For heat, he told Tony to burn a bed that was stored there. A few other people gave Tony a meal here and there, and Marceau himself loaned him the equivalent of $20 one day. (When Tony tried to pay him back later, Marceau wouldn’t accept it.)

Tony and Marcel Marceau backstage at Merrill Auditorium, Portland, Maine, 1986

The day arrived when Tony realized his time in Paris was over, and he decided to travel to Italy to see relatives. He had never been to Italy, but both of his parents were born and raised there. As soon as Tony set foot on the soil, he felt at home. Tony’s fortune shifted in Italy. Every door opened to him, and his pockets were always filled with money. He taught American English at a language school and earned a sizable weekly wage. He also quickly became the darling of Italian TV when he was hired to create and perform in a series of commercials for Colgate toothpaste.

He wrote at least 26 different commercials for Colgate, all with a similar theme. Tony would be an adventurer, going through a jungle or crypt or ghost ship, and just as he was opening a mummy’s tomb, his glamorous sidekick, Lily Cerasoli, would walk out smiling and flashing her dazzling white teeth. Tony’s eyes would pop out of his head in amazement and he’d say in Italian, “What a beautiful smile!” She’d say, “Si, Colgate con Gardol.” The commercials were famous throughout Italy.

Whereas Tony had feared for his life in Paris, he experienced a different kind of fear in Italy—the fear of his accelerating speed toward stardom. He was strangely uncomfortable living on Easy Street and decided to go back to the United States. He secured a performing job on the cruise ship Isle de France and set sail for home. On the ship, he met his future bride, Lahiila lai Cohane, and the next chapter of Tony’s life commenced.

Tony, Lahiila lai, and baby Jovin, New York City, 1958

Tony and Lahiila lai had two sons and although they were never well off, he supported his family almost entirely through performing and teaching mime.

In the late ’50s, early ’60s, Tony designed his one-man show entitled A Mime’s Eye View. For almost 30 years he kept this show alive, writing new stage material and perfecting the old. One of his first appearances took place at Gramercy Theatre in New York City. A critic from the prestigious “Show Business” newspaper wrote:

Tony Montanaro’s “A Mime’s Eye View” is a wholly delightful evening. He is a young artist with a broad range of movement and gesture, a warm stage presence, and his ideas are original, all thought out and developed, and not at all derivative—a difficult accomplishment for any mime.

Kenn from “Variety” wrote:

Tony Montanaro, a student of Marcel Marceau, proves in his new one-man show that he is a talented mime. He is an ingratiating performer with fine control of his body and putty-like face and a keen sense of the humorous aspects of everyday life. He is a talent worth watching.

As his fame grew, so did the opportunities. In the early 1960s, Tony performed on Captain Kangaroo. He also designed and hosted a children’s television show for CBS in Philadelphia. He and the producers had differing ideas as to how the show should be approached. The producers, naturally, wanted to control the script and camera angles, etc. As was typical of Tony, he balked at the prospect of being told what to do and pleaded with the producers to let him do it his way. For once, television submitted and let Tony have almost total freedom on camera. The result was the award-winning children’s TV series, Pretendo.

The instant success of Pretendo surprised and delighted Tony’s producers. But Tony became disillusioned when companies wanted to air their commercials during Pretendo. In those days, the hosts of the shows had to act in the commercials. Tony refused. He resented the thought of the deep pockets owning and manipulating his creativity. After two years, he left CBS and moved on to the next chapter of his career.

In the meantime, Tony’s first marriage had ended and he married Pamela Walbert. Desiring to escape the big city, he and Pam moved to Bearsville, New York. It was soon apparent that this was not the ideal place to raise a family. The drug craze was taking over nearby Woodstock, and Tony didn’t want his family growing up around this peer pressure. In 1970, the Montanaros relocated to South Paris, Maine, where Tony and Pam adopted two daughters and had another son (Tony’s sixth).

Tony, Pam, and Kavi in the farmhouse, South Paris, Maine, 1975 or so

Members of the Montanaro family (from left to right) Pam, Kavi, Adam, Ram, Tony, Jovin, South Paris, Maine, 1975 or so

Tony had been intrigued by a dilapidated former horse farm on the end of a dirt road. The farmhouse looked like an ideal setting for an Alfred Hitchcock film. The barn was lined with horse stalls, rotted floors, seven feet of horse manure in the basement, broken windows, etc., and wild animals had taken over both buildings. Within two years, Tony and Pam had made the house almost livable and had transformed the barn into a theater. Tony named it the Celebration Barn Theater and began holding six- and eight-month workshops in mime, storytelling, and improvisation. These workshops invariably produced performing troupes. The first troupe, consisting of 12 performers, eventually evolved into the six-member Celebration Mime Theater. The company toured nationally to rave reviews.

This bounding band of zanies came from nowhere—well, South Paris, Maine—and were as quickly gone. Five performances at New England’s Life Hall, then back to the wagon, the road, and the tambourines, like the nomadic mimes of the Middle ages. . . their work is delightful . . . these kids can convince their bodies that they’re just about anything.

— Carolyn Clay, The Boston Phoenix

Celebration Mime Theatre, (from left to right) Jane Crosby, Douglas Leach, Brian Meehl, George Sand, Claire Sikoryak Shields, Fateh Azzam

In the Celebration Mime Theater concept of mime, actors pass effortlessly between the animate and the inanimate, being for one moment a person and at the next, his environment. The striking thing about their performance that makes it unique is their ability to find the simple essence of the situation they are portraying. After this they seem to uncannily find a way to achieve their illusions that is so simple no one else would think of it. Simplicity is the hardest state to arrive at in art.

— Frances Wessells, Richmond Times-Dispatch

. . . the most thrilling moment came with the recognition that Montanaro has created a modern Commedia dell’Arte. Commedia dell’Arte, an outgrowth of ancient Roman mime theatre, did not confine its performers to mute expression. Rather it allowed the players to make sounds, to say words, to elaborate on action with musical and spoken accompaniment. The South Paris group . . . displaying elastic virtuoso style, has created a unique stage image, a refinement of Commedia dell’Arte that at once establishes it as an important addition to American theater. There is nothing like it I know of in the country today.

— John Thornton, Portland Press Herald

Tony ostensibly teaches mime, but essentially he promotes the art of self-expression. Consequently, many of Tony’s students realize that the stage is not the best place for them to express themselves. Former students and troupe members have joined human rights movements, monasteries, ashrams. Some have become teachers, doctors, homemakers, or therapists, but many of these people confront life as if it were an extension of Tony’s class: a lesson in problem-solving and personal style.

The Celebration Barn became a mecca for personal style theater. At one time, The Barn was home base for three performing troupes: The Celebration Mime Theater, Razzmatazz!, and Garbo and Jillian. In addition to this, the Celebration Barn family published a quarterly newspaper, The Mime Times. The paper went out to subscribers for five years.

[Thanks to Michael Menes, all 23 issues of Mime Times have been restored and may be found here:

https://mimespokenhere.com/mime-times/]

In the early ’80s, four of Tony’s students who had participated in a six-month workshop asked Tony to form another troupe. By that time, Tony was not sure he wanted to direct another troupe, but their enthusiasm won him over, and The Celebration Theater Ensemble was born. Another hugely successful performing company, the Ensemble performed in theaters all over the world, from New York’s Lincoln Center to Washington’s Kennedy Center to Stockholm, Sweden, and cities throughout Canada.

Celebration Mime Ensemble, (from left to right) Jackie Reifer, Frans Rijnbout, Shelley Wallace, and John Saccone. Photo: Al Fisher.

Between his jobs as a teacher and director, Tony returned to solo performing. Sometimes, however, he asked one or two of his students to join him on stage and share the spotlight. He continued to receive accolades for his performances.

In 1984, William Collins of The Philadelphia Enquirer wrote:

Life is what the best of mimes shed light on. They are corporeal poetry, walking insights into the human condition.

Montanaro’s work with the masks and stock characters of the Commedia dell’Arte was like a street scene by Callot. When he showed people turning into animals they resemble—a rooster, a monkey—the suggestive power in mime took on the aspect of sorcery.

George Jackson of The Washington Post also praised Tony’s work:

Tony Montanaro has a face with those big, distinctive features whose slightest move can change his mood, his age, his very character. His spacing of motions, timing of steps, and levels of energy had the clarity one can expect of a performer in the classic French mime tradition who has studied with Decroux and Marceau. Yet he’s also a clown, a dancer, and storyteller.

Tony and I in our downtown studio in Portland, Maine, 1989. Photo: Heidi Hunter

When Tony and I met in 1987, we had very little in common. He was a world-renowned mime artist, and I was a professional ballet dancer. He was 60 years old, the father of eight, and recently divorced. I was 27, and the only relationship I had ever had was with ballet. Tony was ready to leave his former life, buy an airstream, and hit the road. I was ready to leave my former life, enroll in medical school, and find a cure for AIDS.

We met during a rehearsal for the Portland Ballet’s Nutcracker, in which Tony was playing Uncle Drosselmeyer and I was dancing the Sugar Plum Fairy. Later that day, over a cup of hot chocolate, Tony asked me to marry him. Naturally, I thought he was joking. He wasn’t.

Early in our friendship, Tony invited me to see him perform at a small theater in Portland, Maine. I was not thrilled about seeing a mime show — I hated mime! — but Tony was a friend, and I wanted to support him. That show changed my life. The very next day, I asked Tony to “teach me something!” And as the saying goes, the rest is history.

In the beginning, I fell in love with the fusion of mime and ballet. Tony’s mime enhanced and expanded my ability to express myself as a ballet dancer. Eventually, I also fell in love with Tony. I loved his unique approach to mime, movement, theater, and life. We were married in 1989 and began designing our two-person show, The Montanaro-Hurll Theater of Mime and Dance. We performed, taught, toured, and traveled together for more than a decade. But our time together was short. In 2001, Tony was diagnosed with cancer and died the following year. 

It feels strange to say Tony died when I still feel him very much with me — still inspiring my work and giving me the courage to explore, to take risks, and to seek fulfillment through “mimedance,” the fusion of our two art forms.

Tony once said, “I could be a great mime, but my elbows get in the way.” For the record, Tony’s elbows never got in his way. He could physicalize anything! One time in class, he became frustrated with our reluctance to give our imaginations full sway over our bodies. He said, “You can be anything in mime! Watch! Here’s a washing machine.” In an instant, Tony became a washing machine! In that same instant, our imaginations became visible, audible, even smell-able. We “saw” the clothes slosh up against the window, we “heard” the hum of the motor, we “smelled” soap bubbles. Tony elevated the art of mime to an unprecedented level. He made it a powerful, otherworldly mode of communication.

Fortunately for me, Tony’s ability to communicate did not stop when he died. While approaching this transition called “death,” Tony confided, “If there’s any way for me to communicate with you from the other side, I’m going to find it.” He found it!

— Karen Montanaro