Mike Perrotta has been director of the Masques since the spring of 1995
when he directed a play he'd written based on his short story Daisy Glaze.
Before coming to Fair Lawn, Mr. Perrotta taught for four years at the
Benedictine Academy in Elizabeth where he wrote and directed four of his
own full-length plays (it being difficult to find plays for all-female casts).
In high school and college, Mr. Perrotta acted in plays that include Don't
Drink the Water, You Can't Take It with You, La Ronde, This Is the Rill
Speaking, and How to Succeed. In high school, he wrote music for an
original show called Poetica Americana, and with the Masques he has
written songs and musical themes for Daisy Glaze, A Midsummer Night's
Dream, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Romeo and Juliet, Rear Window,
The Hypochondriac, and Twelfth Night. Also for the Masques, Mr. Perrotta
has adapted works by Woody Allen (Hannah and Her Sisters), John Michael
Hayes (Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window; adapted with Evan Tintle), and
Harry Segall (Heaven Can Wait, creating a composite of the 1938 play, the
1941 film and the 1978 film versions). In Spring 2003 (and again in 2008),
the Masques staged Mr. Perrotta's original play, Subterranean Hometown
Blues, which featured several of his original songs. The Masques' drama
Gainesville (winner of Montclair State University’s award for Best Original
Play 2010) and the comedy Class of ’81 were also written by Mr. Perrotta.
He is proud to have directed the premiere of Masques alumna Robin
Cannito’s Radio Sweetheart (spring 2007).
Other highlights include Moliere's The Hypochondriac (based on a script
originally prepared by Tom Ratzin more than 20 years earlier), which the
club dedicated to the late Tom Ratzin, and the club’s donation of $2,800
to the American Red Cross for Disaster Relief in the wake of the December
2004 tsunami in southeast Asia, the hurricanes Katrina and Rita in New
Orleans, and the October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. In Mr. Perrotta’s
time with the Masques, the club has donated approximately $10,000 in
scholarship money and to philanthropic causes. The Masques are truly
a “community” theater.
More recently, the Masques have taken on lots of Shakespeare, having
staged—from fall 2007 through fall 2010—Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Macbeth,
and Mr. Perrotta’s thirty-second production at Fair Lawn High School, Much
Ado about Nothing.
With Dr. Bryan Granelli, Fair Lawn High School’s resident psychologist, Mr.
Perrotta has created the Suicide Awareness program. Thirty-five minutes of
student-written dramatic material is staged annually by his drama classes
for the benefit of freshmen in order to learn how to best spot and deal with
signs of trouble in their peers.
Among his favorite playwrights are William Shakespeare, Moliere, Thornton
Wilder, David Mamet, Lanford Wilson, Tennessee Williams, and John Guare.
Other influences are Orson Welles, Joseph Papp, David Lynch and Julie
Taymor.
Mr. Perrotta lives in Teachertown with his wife Debbie and two sons, Sean
and Evan.
