A native New Yorker without the accent, Tom Kramer’s writing career began when his play, Caviar and Crumbcake was selected for a reading at the now defunct Circle Rep. Tom wishes to point out that ‘Crumbcake’ had nothing to do with the closing of the company.
He was eventually selected as one of three playwrights into the prestigious Playwrights Horizons Theatre Workshop, where three one-act plays of his were produced: Painfully Employed, followed by Headshots, and Dim Bulbs. Painfully Employed went on to receive a full production at the Harold Clurman Theatre where it launched the Playwrights Horizons Winterfest and later was voted the 15th best short play in the United States by Writer`s Digest. Painfully Employed has since been produced at the 76th Street Theatre in New York City.
Caviar and Crumbcake came back to enjoy a successful run at the Ensemble Studio Theater Summer Conference while his two-act comedy, Death Warmed Over appeared at The Neighborhood Playhouse. His one-act hit, Crime Coaching 101 was performed at the Ensemble Studio Theater Octoberfest, while his one-act comedy, Miss Prism’s Acting School for Wrestlers appeared at the Neighborhood Playhouse, and Rules Girl in Date Hell took center stage at the Princeton Alliance Theater.
In front of the camera, Kramer appeared as a principal performer or spokesman in numerous national commercials ranging from the Liquid Plumr man, to the Total Cereal man, to a Miller Beer man, while his roles on daytime dramas ran the gamut from a knife-wielding assassin, to a licorice-chewing detective, to a pencil-pushing accountant. Characters portrayed Off-Off Broadway have included a nerd, a nut-job, and a ne’er-do-well. He also lent his voice to various voice-over spots and still hopes to get said voice back one of these days.
In November of 2019, Tom was accepted as both a member of the SAG-AFTRA Communications Committee in Los Angeles, and the SAG-AFTRA Editing Sub-Committee.
As of January 2021, Tom retired from the acting profession and is now concentrating on his writing projects, which include a YA novel and his daily to-do list.
In addition to having worked as an actor, dramatist and columnist, he researched and wrote for the award-winning PBS series, Nature. Subjects included: Cats, bats and horses. To this day, he’s allergic to two and still scared of one.
Tom Kramer – Writer of the Wry®
Writer of the Wry® 