Thom Sesma

Actor/director Thom Sesma is a familiar presence on Broadway and Off-Broadway, in regional theatres, as well as on television. In January 2012, he returned to New York from Las Vegas where he played Scar in Disney’s The Lion King for a two and a half year run at The Mandalay Bay Theatre.

Thom Sesma (Photo by Lia Chang)

On Broadway he starred in the Twyla Tharp-Bob Dylan collaboration, The Time They Are A Changin’. Other credits on and off Broadway and in national tours include leading roles in Miss Saigon, Titanic, Search & Destroy, Man of La Mancha (2003), and in Ivanov, Rashomon, Baba Goya, In a Pig’s Valise, As Thousands Cheer, A Hard Heart, Cymbeline, and Othello. Other credits include Durango, Dinner with Friends, The Molly Maguires, Romeo & Juliet, The Normal Heart, Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures, Twelfth Night, The Winter’s Tale and The King & I, at some of America’s leading theatres including Yale Rep, The McCarter, The Old Globe, Arena Stage, Baltimore Centre Stage, Berkeley Rep, and others.

TV and film credits include guest starring roles on “Person of Interest,” “Third Watch,” “Law & Order,” “Whoopi,” “Trinity,” “Lay the Favorite,” “Over/Under,” among many others and daytime soaps. He trained for several years with the late Uta Hagen, with Sam Waterston, and voice with Joan Lader.

His directing credits include Jennifer Camp’s Natural History, (Walnut Street Theatre), LIFE (x) 3 (Repertory Theatre of St. Louis), and Outcry (NAATCO), along with Hair, Lend Me a Tenor, The Drawer Boy, Once in a Lifetime, Waiting for Lefty and others in various regional and stock theatres across the country.

Sesma as a member of Actors Equity Association (AEA), Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Radio and Television Artists (SAG-AFTRA), and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC).

Sesma just participated in the all-star Shinsai: Theaters for Japan benefit at Cooper Union’s Great Hall in NYC, in memory of the tragic events of March 2011 and in tribute to the heroic recovery efforts of the Japanese people.

In rehearsal at Lincoln Center for Shinsai: Theaters for Japan, a collaborative benefit by New York’s leading theater companies as a gesture of solidarity with theater communities in Japan devastated by the 2011 Earthquake and Tsunami, on March 9, 2012. Photo by Lia Chang

Photos: In Rehearsal with Director Bartlett Sher and the cast of Shinsai: Theaters for Japan
Photos: Highlights of Shinsai: Theaters for Japan (3pm) with Andre Bishop, Mary Beth Hurt, Jennifer Lim, Angela Lin, Philip Kan Gotanda, Thom Sesma, Sab Shimono, Richard Thomas, Jay O. Sanders, and more
Photos: Highlights of Shinsai: Theaters for Japan (8pm) with Oskar Eustis, Patti LuPone, Lisa Emery, Ann Harada, Paolo Montalban, Thom Sesma, Sab Shimono, Henry Stram, Richard Thomas, John Weidman and more

Thom was born in Sasebo, Japan (his mother is Japanese and his father was a Latino-American) and raised in San Diego, California. He is a graduate of the University of California, San Diego, where he holds a degree in Modern European Intellectual History.