Meet Matthew Sparacino

We were lucky to catch up with Matthew Sparacino recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Matthew, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

I owe my work ethic and resilience to my parents. My mom and dad both worked for decades at Giant Food and spent long hours stocking shelves, serving customers, checking folks out at the register and, eventually, managing the stores. My mom started at Giant as a young parent at the age of 19, and didn’t retire from the company until she was over 60. When I was a kid she worked the early morning shift, which meant a 3:15 AM alarm six days a week. She’d wake up in the darkness, shower, and arrive at the store by 4 AM to prep for opening a couple hours later. Even though I knew my mom didn’t love that job, she never complained and always showed up and did the job well. And critically, she encouraged my brother and I to work hard in school, go to college, and find work that made us happy. She and my dad found a way to make the best of their circumstances, showing me the value of hard work and the pride one can take in a job well done, even when it’s not the job you’ve hoped for. My parents didn’t have the time or luxury to make a career in the arts, but their approach to work has always influenced me and my artistic pursuits.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I’m an actor, theatre artist, educator, writer and activist with over a decade of experience creating art in Washington, DC. A DMV native and lifelong resident, I went to the University of Maryland and received a BA in Theatre Performance before moving to the District and beginning my career. I’ve had the fortune to play on lots of the area’s finest stages, including roles at the Folger Theatre, the Kennedy Center, Woolly Mammoth, the Keegan Theatre, Studio Theatre, 1st Stage, Avant Bard, and Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, among others. I’m also a proud company member of Pointless Theatre, a troupe founded by my close friends and fellow UMD graduates that specializes in puppetry and visual spectacle onstage. Through my art I try to push myself to stretch beyond my comfort zone and seek variety and fresh challenges. The shows I’ve performed in over the years reflect this and number in the dozens, a list that includes world premieres, devised works, puppet shows, silent pieces, classics and contemporary plays.

I feel so much gratitude toward the artists and theatre-makers who have mentored me throughout my life, and I’m eager to pay that forward to my peers and the next generation. To that end, I’ve been expanding my horizons in recent years and working more as an educator and teaching artist. In 2023, with the support of the company, I founded the Pointless Theatre Artists’ Playground, a recurring series of free creative workshops. The Playground is a space where artists, performers and creators of all stripes can gather to practice and hone their craft, connect with one another and exchange creative tools. In the past year we’ve offered ten sessions to DMV artists, entirely free of charge, on topics as varied as puppetry, voice, improvisation, listening, drama therapy and stage combat. We’ve served dozens of artists already, and I’m hoping that we’ll continue to grow our impact in the community for years to come.

Finally, I have a podcast! I’m a big basketball fan, and in 2021 my friends and I launched the Hoops Crew podcast. It’s hosted by Frank Cervarich, along with four rotating co-hosts: Mary Catherine Curran, Chloe Mikala, Greg Twomey and yours truly. It’s the best sports podcast that you’ve never heard of, so if you’re a fan check us out!

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

I’ve got four, so you get a bonus one! Humility and empathy are two qualities critical to work in the arts, particularly as an actor. An actor’s #1 job is empathy, the ability to put yourself into someone else’s perspective and fully inhabit it. Humility is also key – understanding that we don’t always have the answer to every question, or the right opinion all the time. I feel like it’s more and more rare these days for people to admit a mistake or accept blame, but I find that humility is crucial to growth and collaboration. The other two qualities I’d highlight are flexibility and playfulness; in short, the ability to not take things too seriously, whether it’s your plans, your ideas or your self. There are so many things in the world we can’t control, and a tighter grip usually just leads to more slipping through your fingers. So instead, I try to remind myself to go with the flow, and to find joy and humor in the work that I do.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

One book I read recently that had an impact on me was ‘Teaching as a Subversive Activity’, by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner. The book, written more than 50 years ago, is a harsh indictment of the American education system, with most of its criticisms still very relevant in the present day. Postman and Weingartner cover a range of topics, but the core thesis of the book comes down to this: our education system is content-based when it should be learner-based. For example, the authors argue that “subjects” in school are misguided as a form, since the subject of any classroom should be the students themselves. Who are they? How do they learn? What are they interested in learning? Essentially, rather than teaching people *what* to learn, we should be teaching them *how* to learn. This book helped me articulate some of the difficulties I had with my own education, and I’ve referenced it frequently in my career as an educator and teaching artist.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.matthewsparacino.com
• Instagram: @matty.cino
• Other: www.thefrankpage.com
  @hoopscrewpod (IG)
  @frankandsensemedia (IG)

Image Credits

Headshot Photography – DJ Corey Photography

Production Photography – DJ Corey Photography, Teresa Castracane Photography, C. Stanley Photography, Mike Laws, Ann-Marie VanTassell Photography, Andrew Bossi

Actors Featured – Aaron Bliden, Sarah Ferris