"Universal Language from the New York sound acrobat"

Entertainer and “vocal cartoonist” Zero Boy is an East Village icon who uses a unique blend of sound and mime, the results being something akin to a performed comic book. He has written, directed and performed numerous productions on both coasts and Europe, working in traditional theater, stand-up comedy, television, street performance festivals, radio, film, comic books, magazines, and on the cutting edge of digital media/art.

Over the last year Zero Boy has been developing a play about the history and future of Coney Island. “A trip to Coney Island with Uncle Zero Boy” had its debut at Ars Nova and recently at Coney Island’s Sideshow by the Seashore.

Spring and summer 2009 saw Zero Boy in Dan Moran’s Soul Cakes at the Powerhouse Theater summer festival in Poughkeepsie, New York, and at the Moisture Festival in Seattle, where he’s performed for the past three years.

In 2008 he performed a piece at the Kitchen for the show Astroland featuring Less the Band.

In 2007 Zero Boy was commissioned to write and perform a piece for the Globesity Festival about his experience fasting for ten days. He was chosen to tell a story about deadly sin of gluttony, with Erika Jonge, for the Moth reading series at the New York Public Library.

In 2004 Zero Boy was featured at the Pop Tech festival in Camden Maine, doing an improvised “Stump Zero Boy” along with a recap of the three-day festival’s events. 2004 found Zero Boy at New York’s Actors’ Playhouse where he wrote and performed pieces for News to Me, a live political talk show.

Zero Boy performed regularly on NPR’s The Next Big Thing and did a special “Stump Zero Boy” segment at the WHYY-FM 50th anniversary celebration. He has been seen on the television shows Fox and Friends and Good Day New York. MTV’s M2 network has featured his unique work in a series of six shorts. In 1997 he was featured on Danish television show The Wall doing routines about weapons and warfare.

Zero Boy co-wrote Radio Active with Karen Sneider, a comedy radio play for Stage Shadows at the Museum of Radio and Television. He has been heard on numerous radio shows and recordings using his unique sound talents and character voices.

Zero Boy collaborated with artist Arnold Pander to make Jack Zero, Cracker Jack Shot, a Western comic book published by Dark Horse in 1996. In 2001 he performed a staged version of Jack Zero’s shooting routine with the Bindlestiff Family Circus. He is currently finishing a book of short stories and a novel.

As a host and MC, he hosted an open mike at Symphony Space, co-hosted the weekly E-Z Tuesday’s with the talented Ethan Lipton at the Zipper Theater, the Vision Festival, the Howl Festival and many others.

2005 found Zero Boy on radio shows nationally and internationally after a Flashwire article appeared issuing a challenge to America to try to stump Zero Boy. He has appeared regularly as a guest on The Joey Reynolds show. His political satire led him to collaborate with cartoonist Ward Sutton at Town Hall for a performance at Cooper Union Hall featuring Janeane Garofalo.

He has produced performed and written numerous shows featuring his work. World War Zero debuted at Theater for the New City and DCAC in 2003. In 2000 he debuted Alice in Zeroland at the Whitney Museum at Philip Morris. Zeroland, the adventures and cosmic love story of Zero Boy, debuted at PS 122 in Manhattan in 1999 and was reprised at the District of Columbia Arts Center in Washington D.C.

In 1999 Zero Boy had the gall to fight himself at David Leslie’s Box Opera, and was involved with Josh Harris’ New Years Quite Space 2000.

In Amsterdam from 1994-1996 he co-wrote and produced the serialized show Ooga Ooga at the Winston Kingdom with an international cast. Zero Boy toured Holland extensively as a featured performer at the Comedy Club, Stalhouderij, the Itonia, and many other venues.

Zero Boy was a featured clown at the Valladolid Festival with Jango Edwards, the Ghentse Festival and the Berlin Comedy and Varieté Festival. He performed as a featured voice acrobat in “Liebling Der Gotte” at the Chamaleon Varieté in Berlin, creating a sound cartoon homage to the great Italian juggler Enrico Rastelli.

In 1994 and 1996 Zero Boy hosted two Cannabis Cups in Amsterdam for High Times magazine and worked briefly as a foreign correspondent for the magazine.

On television he has played a Russian barber in two WB Mason commercial spots and a football referee in a Miller LiteESPN commercial with Tom Jackson and Chris Berman. He played a boss in a commercial for Speed Stikas well as an industrial for Booklinks Publishing.He starred in the short film TR-98 for Thornberg & Forster.In 2005 he did a strip routine in Reese Thompson’s Traum Novella at the Barrow Street Theater. In December 2004 Zero Boy played a Mass. State Trooper in Caraid Obrien’s The Sandpiper at Symphony Space.in 2003. He played Max Prospino in “Our Vision Our Future,” a Billionaires for Bush Video.

Zero Boy has co-produced numerous theatrical events with Ironica (Richard Reta), including “Trailer Trash Slot Car Races!” He has also been involved in many Rainbow and Burning Man projects and adventures along with many communitarian pals.

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"For me the discovery of the program was a sensational mime who goes by the name of Zero Boy. Zero Boy made his brief scenes come alive through a skillful blend of pinpoint mime accompanied by the sound effects made by his mouth. In a lampoon of Gulliver's Travels you could visualize the Lilliputians tying him up and crawling all over him. In a doctor sketch he made you see organs flying and blood spurting all over the place. One precise intelligent and hilarious performer we should see more of."

- Fred Crafts KUGN FM

"Darling of the Mockers"

- Berlin Zeitung