Tom Kramer
SAG-AFTRA, AEA, and the Dramatists Guild
A native New Yorker without the accent, 2024 marks Tom’s return to the acting and playwriting world. Kramer’s writing career began when his play, Caviar and Crumbcake, was selected for a reading at the now defunct Circle Rep. Tom wishes to point out that ‘Crumbcake’ had nothing to do with the closing of the company.
He was eventually selected as one of three playwrights into the prestigious Playwrights Horizons Theatre Workshop, where three one-act plays of his were produced: Painfully Employed, followed by Headshots, and Dim Bulbs.
Painfully Employed went on to receive full productions at the Harold Clurman Theatre where it launched the Playwrights Horizons Winterfest and later was voted the 15th best short play in the United States by Writer`s Digest. Painfully Employed has since been produced at the 78th Street Theatre and the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. It has never appeared in Los Angeles but a revamped version will be read at an upcoming 2024 EST/LA Sunday Best.
Caviar and Crumbcake came back to enjoy a successful reading and workshop at the Ensemble Studio Theater Summer Conference, while his two-act comedy, Death Warmed Over appeared at The Neighborhood Playhouse. His one-act hit, Take the Vase and Run was performed at the Ensemble Studio Theater Octoberfest, while his one-act comedy, Miss Prism’s Acting School for Wrestlers appeared at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Tom’s, Church Girl in Date Hell took center stage at the Princeton Alliance Theater.
Kramer’s plays, Crime Coaching 101, and Contract Killer had successful and enjoyable readings at EST/LA, where he is a member actor and playwright. As of February 2024, Tom was accepted as a playwright member into the Group Rep Theatre company.
Besides the playwriting, Tom has written for Pasadena Magazine, and was a member of the SAG-AFTRA Communications Committee in Los Angeles, as well as their Editing Subcommittee.
In front of the camera, Kramer has appeared as a principal performer or spokesperson in many national commercials ranging from the Liquid Plumr man, to the Total Cereal man, to a Miller Beer man. His roles on daytime dramas were usually your run-of-the-mill bad boys: a knife-wielding assassin, a kidnapper, and a brutish thug. After a while, Kramer developed a complex.
Characters portrayed Off-Broadway and yes, Off-Off Broadway (like, far away from Broadway) have included a knucklehead, a nerd, and a ne’er-do-well. He has also lent his voice to national voice-over spots and hopes to get said voice back one of these days.
In addition to working as an actor, dramatist and columnist, he has researched and written for the award-winning PBS series, “NATURE.” Subjects included: Cats, bats and horses. To this day, he’s allergic to two and still scared of one.