All the World’s a Stage

Stephen P. Driscoll ’73, ’75 is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a bachelor’s degree in theater from the College of Humanities and Fine Arts. Stephen serves on the executive committee and is chair of LGBT outreach of the Massachusetts Democratic Party. He taught dance at MIT for 15 years and concurrently was associate director and resident choreographer of the Opera Company of Boston. He served as resident photographer at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival for a decade. A proud member of Actors Equity Association, he recently played Shylock at UMass Amherst, Amherst’s Department of Theater’s production of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.

After many years of generous support to the College of Humanities and Fine Arts Theater and Dance programs, Stephen has left a gift in his will to support the Stephen P. Driscoll Musical Theater Endowment. This endowment will help fund the production of musical theater at UMass Amherst and prioritize collaborative productions with music, dance and the Department of Art.

The news of Stephen’s gift was greeted with a standing ovation at the Department of Theater’s year-end celebration. When Stephen addressed the crowd, he explained that this came out of his own experiences at UMass Amherst. “I hardly ever went to class; I went to rehearsal,” he recalls. Stephen became enamored with musical theater. He remembers music, dance, and theater students coming together to put on shows and recalled art students sitting in the audience, sketching the performers. This endowment, he hopes, will enable such cross-disciplinary work.

Stephen resides in Pembroke, Massachusetts, and in Wilton Manors, Florida, with Robert Tocci, his spouse of 38 years, where he grows a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. He is the owner of NewPro Wrestling and has had a career in professional wrestling as a referee, ring announcer, wrestler and now promoter, here in the United States and in the United Kingdom.

Invest in Your UMass Amherst Passion

You can follow in Stephen’s footsteps and support the University with a gift in your will or other future financial plans. Contact Joseph K. Jayne ’21MPP at giftplanning@uma-foundation.org or 413-577-1418 to learn more about legacy giving.