{"id":29,"date":"2014-10-26T06:09:25","date_gmt":"2014-10-26T06:09:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidserko.com\/wp\/?page_id=29"},"modified":"2020-09-03T20:55:21","modified_gmt":"2020-09-03T20:55:21","slug":"david-serko-bio","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/davidserko.com\/?page_id=29","title":{"rendered":"David Serko Bio"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"David
David 5th\u00a0Grade School\u00a0Pic<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

David Robert Serko was born on October 23, 1960, to Bob and Nancy Serko.\u00a0 David was the third of four children: Peter, Shirley, and Jeff.<\/strong>\u00a0 David was a curious and active child.\u00a0 Shortly after his first birthday, he managed to climb and stand on a kitchen chair tipping it over breaking his leg.\u00a0 Not one to be slowed down or held back by a bulky leg cast he quickly learned to get around the house with style.\u00a0 His strong will and determination, so evident at an early age, would serve him well in his later years.<\/p>\n

An average student in school David was well-liked by a broad circle of friends.\u00a0 In his teenage years, he became active in Boy Scouts and came within two merit badges of becoming an Eagle Scout.<\/p>\n

In high school, he gravitated to music and theater, something that would be a driving force for the remainder of his life.\u00a0 With sister Shirley, they formed a successful dance duo winning first place in state competition.\u00a0 David performed in a number of high school drama productions and sang in the school chorale.<\/p>\n

\"trio\"
“Steam Heat” from “Pajama Game” 1980 Cider Mill Playhouse<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

David also became involved in community theater, winning acclaim for his performances in Equus, Pippin, Da, Pajama Game<\/i> among others.\u00a0 David studied theater in college and is reputed to never have been officially accepted into the State University of New York at Binghamton even though he eventually received a diploma from the institution.<\/p>\n

\u200b
\nAfter graduation, David moved to New York City to follow his dream of performing in the theater.\u00a0 Like most actors, David struggled to break into the business and worked a number of unrewarding jobs over the years.\u00a0 Due to his talent as a dancer and actor, he landed roles in a number of regional productions and joined the cast of international touring productions of A Chorus Line <\/i>(1987) and Dirty Dancing<\/i> (1988). \u00a0His Broadway debut in A Change In the Heir<\/i> in 1990 ended abruptly when the show closed after two weeks due to poor reviews.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"David<\/a>
Headshot 1987<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

David was diagnosed with HIV infection in March 1988.\u00a0 Shortly thereafter he became involved in AIDS activism as an early member of the organization ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power)<\/a>.\u00a0 He participated in a number of key protest rallies during his years of involvement with the group and continued his activism once he became ill.<\/p>\n

His final illness landed him in the familiar surroundings of the 8th floor AIDS ward at Lenox Hill Hospital in NYC. \u00a0 In the final weeks, a constant stream of friends and family came to the hospital sharing much laughter and tears.\u00a0 David\u2019s concern always was comforting others even though he was blind and desperately ill.\u00a0 David died, at age 32, November 23, 1992, at 8:06 am with his parents, brother Peter, partner Eddie, and best friend Tim at his side.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Robert Serko was born on October 23, 1960, to Bob and Nancy Serko.\u00a0 David was the third of four children: Peter, Shirley, and Jeff.\u00a0 David was a curious and active child.\u00a0 Shortly after his first birthday, he managed to climb and stand on a kitchen chair tipping it over …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":286,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-29","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidserko.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidserko.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidserko.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidserko.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidserko.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/davidserko.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1518,"href":"http:\/\/davidserko.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29\/revisions\/1518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/davidserko.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/davidserko.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}