Tom Toce is a New York City-based songwriter, active in the musical theater and cabaret genres. A compilation of his work Hopelessly in Love: The Lyrics of Tom Toce, enjoyed an extended run at the fabled Metropolitan Room in New York, and featured the talents of cabaret stars Carole J. Bufford, Jack Donahue, and Jennifer Sheehan. Tom’s song “Shalom, Santa,” with music by Douglas J. Cohen, won the 2014 MAC Award for Best Comedy Song. Other MAC nominations include one in 2016 for Male Debut for his show Songwriter in the House, which played at the Metropolitan Room and featured Tom performing his singer-songwriter songs; Best Recording in 2014 for the cast album of Hopelessly in Love; and another Best Comedy Song in 2013 for “Bye-Bye, Aloha, Yo!,” with music by Jeff Lazarus. Tom produced and directed Marissa Mulder’s 2014 solo cabaret show Living Standards, which played to packed houses at the Metropolitan Room and received rave reviews.
In 2015, Tom created the Harvard-Yale Cantata, a competition between Harvard and Yale performers and songwriters, which played to great acclaim at Feinstein’s/54 Below. The annual series has played to full houses since, most recently the Fifth Annual Harvard-Yale Cantata in September, 2019. Tom also produced and directed Mr. Victor’s Cabaret for Hipsters: Songs of the 1990s at the Laurie Beechman Theatre in 2015. Tom has produced several shows at Urban Stages’ annual festival Winter Rhythms, including a reading of his musical A Charles Dickens Christmas, for which he wrote the lyrics to Douglas J. Cohen’s music, with a book by Bob Scott. In 2018, Tom took over producing the entire festival, about twenty shows in ten days. In June of 2019, he produced a mini-festival, Summer Melodies.
Tom enjoys a long association with the singer Andrea Marcovicci, who recorded two of his songs for her New Words album and has sung several others in her various cabaret shows, including the world premiere of “The Night I Fell in Love With Paris” at her 2011 and final engagement at the legendary Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel.
Tom has written a number of shows for children, including THE BABE AND I (book and lyrics) at the Hartwick College Summer Music Festival, CURIOUS GEORGE (book and lyrics) for Theatreworks USA, and two other Theatreworks USA shows (lyrics) with music by Doug Cohen. His cabaret songs have been recorded by Jane Monheit, Steve Ross, Tovah Feldshuh, Cynthia Crane, and others. An earlier anthology of his songs “Can It Be Love?” was presented at the sorely-missed Eighty-Eights in Greenwich Village and starred Tovah Feldshuh.
Tom is on the board of Urban Stages, the American Popular Song Society (formerly the New York Sheet Music Society) as well as Theatreworks USA. He creates a cryptic puzzle each month for Contingencies, the national magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries. He is a two-time Jeopardy champion and is in the Jeopardy Hall of Fame, for high score in a single game.