Tom
(Despair)
By Steven Leigh Morris
Tom Provenzano died on Tuesday. People in their mid 60s die all the time, but this was shocking. At 3 pm his body was found in the storage basement, for props and costumes, of the Cal State, San Bernardino university theater, where he taught for decades. He also directed shows, both on campus and across the Inland Empire. He acted in several of them. His body was discovered by the Theatre Department tech director at 3 pm. Tom had taken his own life by asphyxiation. His car was seen in the almost empty parking lot before 7 am, which suggests that he died in the morning.
At 4 pm, I was leaving a class I taught in the university library (one of my two remaining classes before I retire from the state university system). Passing directly in front of the university theater, I did observe two campus police vehicles at the front door, facing each other. In standard solipsistic style that defines our age, I didn’t think much of it. I kept marching to my own car in the parking lot. Shortly after I arrived home at 5:30, I received a phone call from a university colleague. My colleague could barely spit the words out. He thoughtfully wanted me to know before the university posted an announcement.
This is not intended as obituary, but as tribute to someone who touched the lives of hundreds of students where he taught at Cal State, San Bernardino for decades, and the lives of countless L.A. area artists whom he wrote about in the pages of LA Weekly, and in the early days of Stage Raw, where I was his editor.
I’ll be candid, if I may. Tom was a theater fan. If you’re an editor looking for reviews that are exacting, Tom was not your guy. Some of us at LA Weekly would raise our eyebrows at his unwavering enthusiasm for actors and productions. That was in an era when the theater in general wasn’t in such trouble as it is today, and we felt we had a responsibility to tell unvarnished truths.
Because he was such a loyal friend, I can’t pretend to set a tone of objective indifference. This is personal. And it’s not just because he hired me to teach theater on this campus (almost 20 years ago) for which I’m indebted to him. It’s because of his ebullience, his love for his students whom he touted with such pride. They loved him back. As did his colleagues, who can barely collect themselves when now remembering him. The evidence is in their transparent shock and despair on learning of his passing.
Here’s what I remember of Tom: Taking a train from LA to teach in San Bernardino and he’d pick me up at the train station and shuttle me in. When I moved to Idyllwild, I would get snowed in, or snowed out, and Tom offered me a spare room in his house to bunk down in order that I didn’t miss classes. He nurtured an Italian garden (tomatoes, cilantro, basil, cucumbers). One time I brought my very large dog, Ernie Maxwell (part Great Dane, part lab) and Ernie paraded around Tom’s house, inside and out. Ernie Maxwell wasn’t unfriendly, but he was skeptical of people (for good reason, so am I). But he glommed onto Tom and wanted to sleep by his side. I think Tom was touched by this. Any dog owner will tell you that’s all you need to know about a person, and his energy, and his kindness, and his generosity. A dog will pick up on that right away. Tom didn’t pretend to be kind, he just was. And Ernie Maxwell knew it.
Here’s what I don’t understand: Tom was a tenured professor in the process of retiring. He was facing a sizable pension and social security payouts. He was adored. He had a husband living in L.A.
What happened?
The official wording out of the Theatre Department is that he was unable to survive his depression.
So was the agony he endured chemical? Was he pained by what would seem to be a diminishing arts world? A crisis of relevance, personally and professionally? Some combination?
There are hundreds of colleagues and students who would testify that Tom Provenzano mattered. A lot.
I still don’t understand what happened. Tom could care for hundreds of people around him, but he couldn’t quite do the same for himself.
At first, I processed the news of his death as just a shocking story. I thought I was fine. But two days later, I couldn’t get through my playwriting class without having to leave to vomit. I found myself driving home bursting into tears. I’m not the only one.
Thank you, Tom. I’m so sorry it turned out to be so difficult.
A memorial service is pending.
