Michael Toner with Marybeth Phillips.
Philadelphia actor Michael Toner, known for his one-man shows and his critically acclaimed work in Irish plays, was seriously injured in a hit-run accident this week in Philadelphia.
The 68-year-old native of Northeast Philadelphia, who is a frequent Ulysses reader during the Rosenbach Museum’s Bloomsday celebration in Philadelphia, had his right leg amputated at Jefferson Hospital after he was found unconscious on the street at 1 AM by a passerby. He may have lain on the street for two hours. Police are still investigating.
He was supposed to perform David Simpson’s Crossing the Threshold Into the House of Bach with the Amaryllis Theater Company this week.
Toner has performed both in Philadelphia and New York over his 40-plus-year career, as well as at the International James Joyce Symposium, the American Shaw Festival, the Edinburgh, Scotland Fringe Festival, and has written a number of one-man shows in which he starred.
“He’s made a successful career out of one-man shows that no one wanted to produce,” says friend and colleague Marybeth Phillips who first encountered Toner when he was performing with the short-lived Irish Players, an offshoot of the Philadelphia Ceili Group to which Phillips belongs.
“I can’t remember what the play was, but it was back in the early ‘80s and when I came out of the theater, I thought, who the hell was that little guy? He stole the show. That was Michael Toner. He was electric. With every move he made and word he said, he stole the show.”
She said she expects that Toner, a Vietnam veteran who once offered to be her son’s “pagan godfather,” will respond to this setback the way he always does—with typical Irish humor.
“I’ve saved every bit of literature from his accident for him to read. I’m sure Mike will say, ‘Jesus Christ, now you give me publicity. Where were you when I needed it for my plays?’” says Phillips.
