J. T. Buck
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J. T. Buck (born 6 June 1978) is the Director of Arts for First Grace United Church of Christ in Akron, Ohio. He is also a composer, lyricist, stage director, vocalist, and pianist.
Born and raised in Akron, Buck graduated from Central-Hower High School in 1996. He spent his first few years post high school working as a freelance pianist, actor and director and music director.
Buck spent two summers as musical director for the National Children's Theatre School summer workshops in Vail Colorado, and two summers as music director for the Columbia Gorge School of Theatre in White Salmon, Washington. He has taught numerous classes and workshops.
Buck received his BA in Theatre Arts with a minor in music from the University of Akron in 2004. He is currently completing a masters degree in Directing from the University of Houston.
While in Houston, Buck has served as producer of the 2005 Albee New Plays Festival under the leadership of Pulitzer-winner Lanford Wilson, and completed an internship at the 2005 Tony Awards and the revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf under producer Elizabeth I. McCann.
He was also was twice a student of Tony-Winning Broadway producer Stuart Ostrow's New Musical Theatre Lab.
In 2006, Buck accepted the position of Arts Director at First Grace UCC in Akron. His work there involves directing worship-related music and arts, as well as producing and directing grass-roots theatre, music, dance and visual art in collaboration with local and national artists.
Buck has directed a variety of pieces for the stage, including Corpus Christi, The Laramie Project, State Fair, Christopher Durang's Titanic, As Bees In Honey Drown, Dearly Departed and A Christmas Carol.
His latest musical, The Gospel According to Tammy Faye (GATTF) was written with fellow University of Houston student Fernando Dovalina. GATTF is a fantasy flashback retelling of televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker's life story. Written after a lengthy interview granted to the author's by Tammy Faye, the show had it's world premiere at the 2006 Cincinnati Fringe Festival, where it reportedly[citation needed] was the second-highest grossing show of the festival (surpassed only by an artist with a large local following and despite a lack of press attention). It was subsequently given an Equity reading by the Columbia Gorge Repertory Company in Portland and Hood River, Oregon.
GATTF had a box-office-busting July run on the stage of Houston's famous Alley Theatre, as a benefit produced by and for Bering and Friends, a Houston AIDS charity. The production opened on the same night the real Tammy Faye died.
GATTF is currently being prepared for a workshop and possible commercial run in NYC.
In the meantime, Buck continues to live and work in Akron, where he will appear as Mr. Katz in the University of Akron's production of 'The Hot L Baltimore' in October, and direct a production of 'Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol' by Tom Mula this holiday season.
