Born on New York’s Long Island, Philip DiGiacomo was three years old when his family moved to New Canaan, Connecticut.  His father Vincent, one of the original Ad Men, made the commute to Manhattan where he worked as an art director in the heady days of advertising. His mother Barbara was a muralist and trompe l’oeil painter.

Growing up in a family of artists, a formal art education seemed inevitable. A B.F.A. degree in painting from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, coupled with a junior year in Rome, led to a loft in New York long before the area was known as Tribeca.  He went on to earn his Masters Degree in painting from Queens College, New York. Various lofts and studios followed, along with countless jobs: Bartending, cab driving, construction, courier work, even modeling.

During his NY days, Philip’s circle included a number of actors who were as interested in art as he was in their craft. Most had been trained by Sanford Meisner, and their shop talk brought about a revelation. Working as a painter required a studio full of canvases, paints and tools, but the “palette” of an actor was the entire realm of human behavior.

A year later he was accepted into acting school. Following his training, he spent two years working in Dallas in equity theatre and commercials before moving to the west coast. Over the next few years he came to understand that he treasured the “pick and shovel work” of the rehearsal process more than the performance. Though highly trained in both the visual arts and acting, he was not convinced these crafts were the creative avenue he was seeking. So he did what every smart man does: he listened to his wife. She knew he had been collecting bits and pieces of overheard conversations written on scraps of paper and the margins of drawings for over 45 years.  

She urged him to write.