Kurt Elftmann
Kurt Elftmann is the Founder and Artistic Director of Tonic Theater Company, a new company dedicated to increasing public knowledge and understanding of history and science through the power of theater. A veteran stage actor, he has created roles in productions and workshops for Broadway and off-Broadway, including collaborations with composer Cy Coleman anddirector Joe Layton. The list of other talents he has worked with includes Joanne Woodward, Chuck Cooper, Keir Dullea, Marisa Tomei, and Dan Lauria. He was a founding member or company member of several award-winning ensembles, including, Blue Light Theatre Company, Expanded Arts, Third Eye Repertory and Hypothetical Theatre Company in New York, as well as the New Jersey Repertory Company.
An advocate of new plays from early in his career, in New York he produced readings of new plays for potential commercial production and Tonic is an extension of this passion. For Tonic Kurt has produced readings and events such as the educational program The Makers: Reykjavik, with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes, Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr., and actors Edward Gero and David Bryan Jackson at the Carnegie Institute for Science in November 2018. He will produce the play "Reykjavik", about the historic 1986 Reagan/Gorbachev meeting in Iceland and written by Mr. Rhodes, in 2020. Other plans include a continuation of The Makers: Reykjavik at venues around the DMV as well as in podcast form, and a serialized podcast of the play "T.J.", a comedy about Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries.
In late August, 2019, he is producing a workshop of a new play at the Kennedy Center Page-to-Stage Festival, "Places", a tour de force, one-woman multimedia show about the greatest star you’ve never heard of, Alla Nazimova. Kurt is a graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York and holds an MFA from the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Academy for Classical Acting at The George Washington University. He thanks 202Creates for this opportunity. Connect with Kurt | Website:
Connect with Kurt | Website: www.tonictheater.org | Instagram: @kelftmann