Geronimo Sands, a.k.a., James Lonigro

(Artistic Director of Priscilla Beach Theatre)

Geronimo hails from Chicago where he started his acting training at the age of five with the Jack and Jill Players.  His professional career started soon after broadcasting regularly over 'live' radio, W.F.J. L.   He appeared in child roles in professional summer stock, as well as making many commercials. He acted on TV often and made several films.

At  the age of fourteen he started the Penthouse Summer Theatre in Chicago’s loop. The acting company was comprised of teen actors and had a successful run of three years.

Mr. Sands went on to be an award winning graduate (class of ‘61) of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.  Soon after in ‘62 he and Leon F. Mehalick took over the operation of the Priscilla Beach Theatre (PBT) located in Plymouth, Massachusetts. PBT had already run for twenty-five summers under the guidance of its founders, Mr. and Mrs. Trask.

Throughout his forty-eight years as Artistic Director of PBT, Mr. Sands has lent his talents as drama teacher, director, actor, and playwright with thirty-five produced plays at PBT, New York, and London combined.

Through the years he has appeared in several Broadway and off-Broadway plays, which include roles in The Fantasticks, King Of The Dark Chamber, The Wild Duck, The Brothers Karamazov, Romeo And Juliet,  Idiot’s Delight, The Chalk Garden, Fumed Oak, The Madwoman Of Chaillot and many others.

During the 80s he hosted the cable television show called "State of the arts with Geronimo Sands and his friends," a program which investigated the Seven Lively Arts through interviews and demonstrations.  His weekly 'live' radio show, "The voice of theater with Geronimo Sands" aired for sixty-five weeks over W.M.S.X. in Brockton, Mass.  The program featured the comeback of 'live' radio drama.

Mr. Sands annually directed high school musicals for his former high school principal, the late Sister Mary Beatrix, O.S. F., in Aurora, Illinois and Omaha, Nebraska for over twenty-five years.  He has also conducted theater seminars at colleges throughout the Midwest.

He was one of the producers of H&H Productions in New York, a Dinner Theatre packaging company that supplied monthly plays for fourteen theatres throughout the U.S. ('67-'71)

Mr. Sands has been world acclaimed for the performance of his one-man show, The World of Carl Sandburg by Norman Corwin.