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 Barry Pineo was born at night in a raging snowstorm on the shores of the Atlantic in Jonesport, Maine. The doctor came in bundled up, shaking off snow, with a chambray shirt and boots on. Barry is a Capricorn, and goat-headedness might be an apt way to describe his sometimes disposition.
Barry's mother took great care of him, but he ended up being shuttled about New England with a succession of stepfathers (one of whom had a glass eye, around which revolves an excellent story). For most of his adolescent years, it was just one stepfather, but that security was torn asunder when the second stepfather came along and started moving him from place to place, and right when the hormones started kicking in too, thus introducing the element of chaos into young Barry's life.
Barry became involved in theater when his mother enrolled him in an acting class after enjoying his imitations of Paul Lynde. He was cast in the first play for which he auditioned, a high school production of Pierre Patelin, which had one performance, and around which revolves a fun story in which Barry was introduced to the concept of a fellow actor not only forgetting his lines, but skipping an entire scene.
After graduation, Barry got inebriated for a month at the University of Maine at Farmington, then pumped gas for a while—next to teaching acting, still the best job he's ever had—and then enlisted in the Air Force after his mother suggested it couldn't hurt to talk to the recruiter. After spending most of four years stationed in Las Vegas and acting a lot, Barry decided to do what he had planned to do before he got sidetracked into drinking in Farmington—get a theater degree from the University of Maine at Orono.
Which he did. And met his lovely wife, Johanna Whitmore, who tolerates him to this day. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa, he was accepted into graduate school for directing at the University of Texas, which was not a bad place to be, since it had a decent (now excellent) football team.
Barry and Jo got pregnant (chaos again) shortly after he graduated from UT. He ended up working as a jack-of-all-trades for a lawyer. In order to earn extra money, he started writing reviews for the Austin Chronicle, and still does write reviews, and previews, and features as well.
Here comes the epiphany. After fourteen years of sitting under fluorescent lighting, Barry realized he was unhappy. (See that goat-headedness in there?) He was doing theater stuff along with sitting under the fluorescents, but what he really wanted—had wanted, all along—was to teach. So he started the Austin Acting Workshop, out of which evolved his book about acting technique, Acting That Matters. And now he lives (and teaches, writes, directs, etc.) in the greater Austin, Texas area with Jo, James (who is a terrific baseball player), Jesse (who is the sweetest little boy), and their doe-eyed dog, Ricky
Allworth Press books written by Barry Pineo:
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