Acting      
  email David      
  directing playwrighting   Curriculum Vitae
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  I'm a decent actor and enjoy being on stage even though I've not pursued acting in any really serious manner since the late 1980's. If you think I might be appropriate for a role you are casting, I'd love to audition for you. I can easily get into New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and places in between; just email me, I check often.
Height   5'8"
Weight   170
Eyes   Hazel
Hair   Salt & Pepper
Voice   Baritone
Range   Low G to E above middle C
 
       
  Role Play Director Production
  Scrooge A Christmas Carol David Zarko WVIA TV & FM, Sordoni Theater, 2011
  Morrie Tuesdays with Morrie Jamie Hargreaves Marywood University, 2011
  G.B. Shaw Dear Liar James Langan Electric Theatre Company, 2009
The Stage Manager Our Town Maura Malloy The Dietrich Theater, 2009
The Prince & Friar John The Very Nearly Perfect Comedy of Romeo & Juliet David Zarko Electric Theatre Company, 2009
Robert Proof Mary Ethel Schmidt The Northeast Theatre, 2003
  Vince Wenceslas Square Natalie Ross Vaidilos Ainai Teatros, 1995
Huckleby The Fantasticks David Zarko Michigan Ensemble Theatre, 1992
  Bug Bug Greg Fritsch Center Street Theater, 1990
Charlie The Foreigner Greg Fritsch Pacific Theatre Company, 1989 & 1990
  Dingwall Love Potion Ed Chemaly Performance Possibilities, 1988
  Dennis Mordaunt A Gift of Murder Paul Eiseman Riverwest Theatre, 1987
  Mr. Collins Sweet Land of Liberty (musical) Warren Kelly Pennybridge Players, 1987
  Barnaby Babes in Toyland Ed Bartosic Bucks County Playhouse, 1986
Lockit The Beggar's Opera Rod Ceballos Virginia Shakespeare Festival, 1986
  Poins Henry IV, Part I Keith Fowler Virginia Shakespeare Festival, 1986
  Abram & Chief Watch Romeo and Juliet Robert Hobbs Virginia Shakespeare Festival, 1986
  Yasha & Buggs The Cradle Will Rock Marcia Taylor Bear Republic Theatre, 1983
  Blunschli Arms and the Man Michael Griggs Bear Republic Theater, 1982
  The Ragpicker Madwoman of Chaillot Michael Griggs Bear Republic Theater, 1981
  Madcap Escurial Jack Carpenter The Fabulous Theatre Co., 1981
Florindo Aunts Jack Carpenter The Fabulous Theatre Co., 1980
  Pantelone & Flavio A Point of Honor David Zarko Parsifal's Players, 1978
  Jerry The Zoo Story Chris Shaw Center Street Theatre, 1978
  Smirnoff The Barbarian Margaret Herz Center Street Theatre, 1977
  Ivan The Insalubrious Effects of Smoking Tobacco Ed Coughlin Parsifal's Players, 1977
  Nikita Swan Song Kimball MacKay Parsifal's Players, 1977
  Preacher Haggler The Dark of the Moon Melita Thorpe Storefront Theatre, 1974
  Damis Tartuffe Bernard Cohen Duck Island Rep, 1974
  Demitrius A Midsummer Night's Dream Peter Troxell Duck Island Rep, 1973
         

Video, Film, and Radio
         
  Six Roles Lackawanna Rails (in four radio plays) Don Wildman WVIA-FM Pittston, 2005
  Dan the Dentist The Yolum Tapes   Group Therapy Training Film, Monterey, 1990
  Italian Guest Loving   ABC-TV, 1988
  Greek Musician The Guiding Light   CBS-TV, 1987
  Branch Manager Training Film   ChemBank, NYC, 1987
  24 Roles Rebels Without Applause (in about a dozen radio plays)   KZSC Santa Cruz & KPFA Berkeley, 1982-85
         

Training

     see CV for full listing
         
  Education BFA Dramatic Production Acting, Directing, Tech University of Arizona, Tuscon
  Acting Bill Prosser Scene Study Private Coaching, San Francisco
    Spalding Gray Improvisation UCSC Workshop
    Rebecca Taylor Meisner The Actors' Institute
  Singing Royal Stanton Solo and Choral DeAnza College
    Rona Leslie Technique Private Lessons, NYC
         

Other Skills
  Accents Various British, American & European    
  Languages Conversational Italian    
    Very Basic Croation    
    Russian, but extremely rusty    
  Technical Theater Make-up, scene painting, and scenic design    
  Other Theatrical Director, Playwright    
  General Computer literate, drive standard, swimming    
This production was a collaboration between Electric Theatre Company and The Dietrich Theater, a not-for-profit cinema. ETC provided professional actors for the principal roles, the director, and tech support. The Dietrich helped gather community actors for, well, the community. It was a wonderful production beautifully costumed by Calista Hendrickson. I'm the guy in the middle.
  There were no reviews.
  We got to play this almost perfect comedy for about 50 performances, first at The Barn Theatre at UC Santa Cruz (just before the Loma Prieta quake which interrupted strike!) and then at The Carriage House Theater at Villa Montalvo in Los Gatos. The role of Charlie was a delight to play.   Zarko performs splendidly as the sheepish Charlie, tracking with a natural comic flair his gradual transformation from a mouse to a lion in sheep's clothing. His British accent is acceptable, if not perfect. But his real shining moments come when he quotes ancient science fiction and horror films and engages in some broadly physical comedy with young Ellard.
Rich Hildreth -- Good Times
      David Zarko provides a beguiling lead as Charlie, the hapless bloke, detested by his ailing wife back home and presumed a citizen of some exotic country by a houseful of strangers. With expert understatement, Zarko picks out microscopic nuances of body language which capture the timid Englishman's essence. As Charlie adapts to "foreigner" mode, he finds new freedoms...
Philip Collins -- The Santa Cruz Sentinel
  The cast is headed up by the inimitable David Zarko whose interpretation of the hapless, and yet adorable, Charlie is outstanding. Zarko makes fine use of a wide assortment of delicious expressions from woebegone to beguiling, and they all work to his advantage. He's funny enough to make your sides ache, and innocent enough to make you love him.
Ann Bennett -- Register-Pajaronian		   David Zarko was vocally and mimetically wonderful as Charlie Baker, the "furiner" plunked down in the midst of the lodge's genteel seediness by Fate...
Norman Lonbino -- Saratoga Times-Tribune
       
  I spent a very happy summer in 1986 at Virginia Shakespeare Festival at William and Mary College in Williamsburg. I had the opportunity to play Abram in Romeo and Juliet ("Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?"), Poins in Henry IV Part 1 (my favorite of the three) and Lockit in The Beggar's Opera (which has become one of my best-loved shows.) But the most wonderful part of the summer was time-traveling in Williamsburg late at night after all the tourists had gone.

(Ah, for the days when I still needed age makeup.)		  
    There were reviews, but this was a long time ago, and I was probably never mentioned anyway.  
   
This was my first chance at a role in many years, and what a great way to "come back." It's a tremendous script, and we mounted a very solid production with good direction, a talented cast, and a wonderful set.  
The acting ensemble in this production is exceptional. David Zurko [sic] makes his acting debut with TNT in this production. Mr. Zurko [sic], who serves as artistic director for the company, portrays the mentally deteriorating mathematical scholar with just the right mix of doting parental joviality and affection, tempered with the instability of a mentally ill eccentric.
Joe Caputo, Scranton Times		  
     
I helped found The Fabulous Theatre Co. in San Francisco in about 1981, and we lasted for a season or two. We wanted to do a commedia style show and take it to parks and such, but the company was heavy on women, and most commedia scenarios are not. So Baird Straughan crafted a little comedy based on a Scalo scenario and turned the old men (anziani) into women. It was loads of fun and we took it to various, and some very odd, locations around the Bay Area. I'm the guy in the front.  
There were reviews but I can't find them.    
   
I directed this show at Michigan Ensemble Theatre in 1992. On the first night of the run, before opening even, the fellow playing Huckleby developed nodes on his larynx and was told he could not sing for five weeks. Maggie looked at me and noted that I knew the show better than anyone else there, so I stepped in that night and did all but the final performance when the original actor was able to come back. But for all of that, it remains a splendid memory, and one I wouldn't mind repeating as director or as one of the fathers. (I'm the one on the right.)  
There were reviews but I can't find them.  
The basic conceit for this production was that the lovers were red-nosed clowns caught up a world dominated by characters from commedia dell'arte. The clowns, ever innocent and seeking affection, grabbed our hearts, while their families and friends, focused on status and image, led them terribly wrong.

As Mercutio’s (wisecracking) final words in Romeo and Juliet demonstrate, there is a place for humor even in the midst of the ”gravest” tragedy. Maximizing this model to its most ridiculous proportions, Zuppa del Giorno’s "The Very Nearly Perfect Comedy of Romeo and Juliet" is a schizophrenic experience likely to leave you with mixed emotions. The intriguing modern commedia production continues at Electric Theatre Company in Scranton through Sunday.
Alicia Grega, Electric City

 
 

We began with the notion that the play tries to be a comedy (most of the time) until very late in the story. Mark McKenna directed the clowns, Angelo Crotti worked with me on the commedia, and I did my best to knit it all together while playing two small roles. My only regret was not being able to see the whole thing, uninterrupted. Audiences loved it (aside from a few Shakespeare purists).