The Theater of I Am is a school and a community of thinkers.

Founded by Gilbert John Barretto in 1975 and maintained for 40 years, we his students offer our love, work experience and ideas as food for thought.

Gilbert John Barretto was born on March 2, 1929, in the Bronx in New York City. He was educated at State University New York, New Paltz; Hunter College, where he was awarded a Master’s Degree in social work; and the Psychoanalytic Institute. He went on to work as a counselor with Beth Israel and Lenox Hill Hospitals as well as with New York’s Greenwich House.

Gil played saxophone, clarinet, and flute, studying with Bill Scheiner (Stan Getz’ teach­er) and David Weber (associate principal clarinetist in the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Toscanini). Gil went on to become a bandleader on the club circuit as well as with Brown’s Hotel in the Catskills. Music remained important to Gil throughout his life; in his later years, when he moved to Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, Gil renewed his focus on the saxophone. He performed at the Deer Head Inn in Pennsylvania and other venues, including in Ecuador during what became an annual wintertime trip. He played Stan Getz’ saxophone, a gift from Stan’s daughter which held great meaning for Gil due to his deep respect and admiration for Stan.

In the 1970s, Gil became drawn to meditation and esoteric studies. A 1972 pilgrimage to India—which he took with Joseph Goldstein, a co-founder of Insight Meditation—to study with the renowned teacher S.N. Goenka was an eventful one. Gil fell very ill with hepatitis in a small village hospital; outside his window, he could see funeral pyres burning and was told that he could be next in line. During that illness, Gil was drawn to the Fourth Way work of G.I. Gurdjieff . With great difficulty, Gil made it back to his parents’ home in Washington Heights, New York, where he withdrew from the world and slowly regained his health.

After recovering his health, Gil was given a letter of introduction to Madame de Salzmann, the founder of the Gurdjieff Foundation. This trail led Gil to study under Henry Korman, who ran a Fourth Way group in New York, and to meetings with the prominent Fourth Way teachers Lord John Pentland and Louise March. Eventually, Gil established his own New York group, assuming his place amidst the lineage of teachers of the Fourth Way (though his work drew on many other sources as well). Gil’s group has been active for more than thirty years, during which time Gil never missed a meeting. At several points he sought to express his ideas in writing, some of which are included in the book Selected Writings of G.J. Barretto, the publication of which was arranged in 2009 by his students.

Gil died on March 5, 2015, at his home in Canadensis, Pennsylvania, as he had wished. He spent his last weeks under the loving care of his wife, Sue Terry, and was joined at times by close friends and students. He is survived by Sue, a jazz musician and composer, his daughter, Sunday Holcomb, and his grandson, Alexander Holcomb.

Certain facts of his life are outlined above, but the arc of Gil’s life cannot be traced through biographical details. Gil earned a seat at the table of remarkable men; he was a master whose mission became one of passing along his mastery. And Gil brought tremendous gifts and total dedication to this work with his students. He loved them. He had an extraordinary ability to see their essential core, help them develop this core, and lend them energy to pursue their dreams and their evolution.

It is in this work that Gil lives on.