By Charlene Baldridge 

Actor Nick Cordileone is on the road and coming to a theater near you.

The San Diego native has got his act together.

Having had an exceptionally productive early career at Lamb’s Players (he estimates at least 40 productions) and other San Diego theaters, he left town in 2009, right after the close of the award-winning The Old Globe production of “Lobby Hero,” in which he played a leading role.

Cordileone took his newly earned Actors Equity card, his theatrically-inclined wife, Amy, whom he met at Lamb’s, and their infant daughter, Hero, and moved from the family enclave in Little Italy to New York City, where he aspired to become a busy, professional actor.

From Sept. 7 through Oct. 2, San Diegans may catch the fully ripened actor as the comic Timon the Meercat in the North American touring production of the incomparable Broadway show, “The Lion King,” with which he has been on the road for more than six years.

The home-schooled Hero, now 13, travels along with dad, who describes the two of them as “the road team.” She loves the routine and the nomad lifestyle, he said. Amy visits them in almost every city (engagements are booked a minimum of three weeks in each locale).

After the couple’s move to New York, Amy got her doctorate in educational theater from New York University, where she now teaches.

“She can schedule her workload in such a way that she can get out to us pretty often,” Cordileone said. “It suits our family well.”

In addition to directing and choreographing, Amy runs what Nick deems “a great program” that advises acting students about the practicalities of the profession. “Everything I’ve found fulfilling in my career,” he said, “she’s found the equivalent in hers.”

Was it rough when he first hit New York?

“I got pretty lucky early on,” he said. “It was a bit of a hustle, going to Equity cattle call auditions, but I was able to get some work off-Broadway and with the Shakespeare Festival of New Jersey. Once I got an agent, it was kind of ‘no looking back.’ I was all over the country, doing regional theater, which was a great start.

“‘Lion King’ is kind of like regional theater because we get to stay a whole month in every city. It’s unheard of, really, in theater for sure, a real priceless opportunity. To know what you’re doing for more than a few months at a time is a boon. You can plan a real life that’s more of a typical life than you usually get to experience in the arts,” he said.

“The show itself is breathtaking. It still is. When we come to a new city, we get to see the final rehearsal without an audience. I still get emotional even when people don’t have their make up on. It’s the music and the artistry. They’re just beautiful,” he continued.

“As for Timon, he’s so ‘in the moment’ that he’s on cloud 9 when he finds a grub to eat or sees a star in the sky. Then, at the drop of a hat, he’s running for his life like a chicken with his head cut off, because of some scary sound. He’s a blast to play because the highs are super high and the lows are super low. Besides, I get to sing ‘Hakuna Matata’ and operate as a surrogate parent for Simba.”

—Charlene Baldridge has been writing about the arts since 1979. Follow her blog at charlenebaldridge.com or reach her at [email protected].