Tim Cusack
(Rhymes with music)
Tim Cusack is a queer actor, director, writer, and educator based in New York City. He was the co-founder and artistic director of Theatre Askew, where he appeared in productions including Bald Diva! (named a notable performance of the year by Theater Mania and NYTheater.com), i google myself, The Tempest, Horatio’s Rise, That’s Not It, and Horseplay in the Ellen Stewart Theater at La MaMa.
With Askew, he also created and starred as Caligula in the six-part serial I, Claudius Live, which earned him a “Future Legends” mention from the Next magazine. His directing credits for the company also include Cornbury: The Queen’s Governor by William M. Hoffman and Anthony Holland and Bianca Leigh’s solo musical Busted.
Beyond Theater Askew, Tim has collaborated with numerous downtown and experimental theater companies, including Peculiar Works Project (directing segments of the OBIE-winning East and West Village Fragments) and the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, where he performed in several pandemic era Zoom productions directed by Everett Quinton. In recognition of his contributions to NYC’s indie theater scene, he was inducted into the Indy Theater Hall of Fame in 2014.
In recent years, Tim has focused on solo performance and dance-based work. His piece I Ping the Body Electric, a reimagining of Walt Whitman’s iconic poem, premiered in front of the former Mother nightclub in 2021 and has been performed at venues including Le Petit Versailles, the LUNGS Harvest Arts Festival, and Governors Island. His most recent solo show, I’m Not Mike White, premiered at Green Room 42 in Time Square in 2023 and was revised for Brooklyn Art Haus in 2025.
An active writer and editor, Tim was a contributing editor for the Clyde Fitch Report, where he wrote the monthly “Culture Askew” column. He is also co-editor with Claudia Orenstein of Puppet and Spirit: Ritual, Religion and Performing Objects, a two volume anthology on puppetry and spirituality, and a contributor to Sontag and the Camp Aesthetic, in which he analyzes Susan Sontag’s celebrity persona as a form of self-closeting.
Tim holds a BFA in Drama from NYU Tisch and an MA in Theater from Hunter College, where he was a Vera Roberts Fellow and has served as an adjunct instructor. Most recently, he co-directed and co-starred in a Muppet-inspired production of Camus’s Caligula with the Radical Faeries in Tennessee and directed a benefit reading of Charles Ludlam’s Grand Tarot at Judson Church.
I’m Not Mike White
“A funny and moving look at the life of a not so willing celebrity doppelgänger— and a searing tribute to loving, surviving and losing people we loved in the AIDS crisis. Tim masterfully weaves his story with a beautiful poetry and magic.”
Chokehold
“This taut, 70-minute drama, so well acted under Tim Cusack’s fine-tuned direction, eloquently captures the sense of unmitigated sorrow and helplessness that has gripped so many in this country, as day after day we witness the continuing racial strife and unfulfilled promises that haunt our history as a nation”
Horseplay: or, the Fickle Mistress, a Protean Picaresque
“There is no more delightful way to learn about [Adah Isaacs] Menken than Trav S.D.’s Horseplay, now being presented by Theatre Askew at La MaMa. It’s a rollicking and unbelievable story, overflowing with scrappy DIY theatricality that will make you feel like you’re seeing a traveling show back when Menken was regularly front-page news.”
Conbury: The Queen’s Governor
“The camp-as-Christmas style of the show, directed by Tim Cusack for Theatre Askew, recalls the
heady frolics of Charles Ludlam, the playwright and actor who led the Ridiculous Theatrical
Company for two decades before his death in 1987. ”
Busted
“[Bianca] bares her soul about a painful night, decades ago, that she shares with us to cleanse herself of the darkness, to make us realize how far we have come and how much we need to stick together. She is strong and brave, talented and beautiful. Thank you, Bianca, for trusting us”
Bent
“This reading of “Bent” was an uncommonly coherent theatrical experience, for which much of the credit must certainly go to director Cusack: attention to detail, demonstration of the arc of the piece itself, a strong and beautifully aligned cast without a weak link.”