Roe Ziccarello shines her light on Taos
MUSICIAN, actor and educator Rosalie Ziccarello — known to her students as “Ms. Roe” and to everyone else simply as Roe — looks remarkably young to have lived as much life as she has. She and her husband, popular drummer Thomas, moved here from Atlanta, Georgia, 17 years ago. They celebrated 38 years of marriage this April.
“We met in the ‘80s when we both auditioned for Loki Ontai’s Polynesian Revue, based in New York City. We both got the gig, and they told us we had to move to New York immediately. We were barely into our 20s! Thomas moved in with me, on 48th Street and 8th Avenue, near Times Square. We didn’t date until after we had become best friends from gigging together. We married a year later, backpacked through Europe for six-and-a-half months, and came home pregnant. The rest is history.
“We performed at the Hawaii Kai restaurant on Broadway. Loki booked gigs all over the tri-state area, as far north as Boston, and as far south as Hershey, Pennsylvania. We even did a gig at Studio 54, opening for Gloria Gaynor! Loki was a real perfectionist. I threw her a surprise birthday party once at my apartment, and she said nobody had ever done that for her.
“I was a professional Polynesian dancer for 25 years. When we moved to Atlanta, I started a dance troupe with my six sisters and three brothers, and Thomas was the drummer. Somewhere along the way, I went back to school and got three degrees. I did my Master’s while pregnant with Joey. Then when I got my Educational Specialist’s degree, Gian died three weeks later.”
The tragic loss of their son Gian precipitated their move to Taos.
“We moved here eight months later. I told everyone we knew in Atlanta, ‘We’re going to move to Taos, buy a house and have foster children.’ They looked at me like I was crazy. But we did it. We came to Taos to heal, and we lived off Blueberry Hill. I taught kindergarten at Enos Garcia for nine years, 2005-2014, and during that time we’ve fostered 15 children. All of them are grown now, some have children of their own. Then I moved to Taos International School and taught there for five years. Then I became a certified
music teacher, and then I retired … for a year, and then I unretired! I had a job lined up teaching music in an art camp in New York, summer 2020, but that all changed. So I called Rich at TISA [Taos Integrated School of the Arts] and he hired me.”
Rich Greywolf is the director of TISA, as well as being an acclaimed actor and co-founder of Taos’ own Teatro Serpiente.
“TISA feels grateful to have a talented teacher and artist working in our building,” he said of Ziccarello. “As a director and producer of Teatro Serpiente, her performances were spot on and engaging whether playing the role of Jacques in ‘As You Like It’ or as my girlfriend in ‘Gorilla Romance.’ She is an amazing resource and talent powerhouse that contributes to our small but vibrant community.”
“I miss acting,” said Ziccarello. In addition to “Gorilla Romance” — a hilarious live serial story that ran for years to uproarious applause at a packed Taos Mesa Brewing — she also starred in numerous Shakespearian productions and other plays, both classic and modern, for Teatro Serpiente and Taos Onstage. “The last play I did was two years ago, ‘Men on Boats’ with an all-women cast. It was wonderful.
Check out Roe Ziccarello’s channel on youtube, youtube.com/channel/ UCYnH6JCaGl-JRInTZfq1FRA.
“I was playing guitar and singing at Bent Street Cafe but I took a break from that during quarantine too. We’re starting up again this Mother’s Day. I’m not really a rocker, I do singer-songwriter stuff. The most exciting thing, we’re recording with Greg Thum of Vanilla Pop. Our son Joey is doing the music. He’s coming out in June. Recording with Joey is a breeze. We don’t tell him what to play, we just let him have free reign. It’s worry-free recording. My original songs, songs we’ve written over the years, we had actually stopped writing because we had so much.
“Another fun thing I’m doing right now — I started a youtube channel because I had spent the summer with my grandson and we sang together all day, and when I left I knew he would miss the singing. I started youtubing so that if he missed me, he could watch. I couldn’t record copyrighted material, so I wrote my own. I wrote ‘thank you’ and ‘I love you’ songs in 15 languages. I tell my kids, when you can thank someone in their own language, that means a lot.
“Now I’ve started doing magic tricks over Zoom. I wrote this magic show 14 years ago, and I pulled it out again because we were all looking for a way to get kids motivated to do things over Zoom. I’m going to do a magic show in the yard at TISA with my 1st-graders in a few weeks, and we are planning a luau event for TISA’s summer program, complete with dances from Hawaii, New Zealand and Samoa!”
Thomas Ziccarello has similarly failed at attempts to retire, instead coming back to work again and again. In Taos, he has provided the drumming backbone for the Averill Lovely Band, the Cullen Winter Blues Band, Big Boom Box and Chicken Sedan, to name but a few.
“I have gigs lined up in July,” he said. “I can’t wait to be in Chicken Sedan again with Cullen and Conrad.”
“Thomas works at DreamTree Project as construction manager and hires the kids to work on the site and teaches them life skills. He’s everybody’s grandpa. It’s the best job he’s ever had because even though it’s physical labor, he gives them self-esteem, they’re doing carpentry and they feel good about themselves. I’m a school teacher, I teach self-esteem too. We’ve both gained a lot from fostering.
“As we’re coming back now to inperson learning, I think kids are way more resilient than grownups. They’re so grateful to be with each other that they actually behave. For the future, we’re working to build another house up on a ridge. Then we’ll really retire. I think. I’m looking forward to spending time with our grandson. They call me Gigi, they call Thomas, Papa.”
And what’s kept them sane over the past year?
“Zoom zumba and Zoom church saved us. I did zumba in person for eight years with the same person, and they invited me to come in on Zoom. I got my kids to start dancing. Then Pam Shepherd invited us to play music at United Church of Christ. It gave us motivation to play music, and we got more in touch with our spirituality. It’s a fellowship of people who want the world to be a better place. We all pray, and it’s a beautiful experience. Lately I’ve been praying 24/7. I pray for all the kids.”