The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department wants our community to have a chance to know their officers as individuals, whose lives are just as busy, complicated and sometimes crazy as those they serve.

Yep, McTigue Left Acting to Be a Police Officer

In a way, the theater led Greg McTigue to a career in policing. After performing as T-Bird in his high school’s rendition of Grease, a classmate’s dad asked him to volunteer as a role player during training for the New York State Police.

McTigue did his best impersonation as an abusive husband, a drunk driver, and a reckless speeder, so the troopers could practice how to respond in various situations.

The troopers he met encouraged him to follow in their footsteps, as did his brother (a police officer) and dad (a military man). He was interested in policing, but decided to take his acting a bit further first.

McTigue majored in theater in college.

He continued role playing for the New York State Police through high school and college, and even got a paying gig as a role player for the Pennsylvania State Police.

After college, he won an acting job at Hershey (theme) Park in PA and was then hired to perform at the Music Mansion Theater at Dollywood in Tenn. He actually performed with Dolly a few times during special shows.

McTigue earned a spot on an international tour of Phantom of the Opera, which allowed him to travel as far as Colombia and Brazil to perform.

Eventually, he returned to Tennessee, married his wife Patricia, and they began a life as theater performers. She sang backup for Lee Greenwood. He spent eight years performing in Tennessee.

“Dolly Patron is amazing,” he says of the world famous country singer. “She is genuine and probably one of the most talented people you will ever meet. She is incredibly generous too.”

After 6 years of marriage, McTigue and his wife decided they wanted to have a family and needed more stable jobs. The couple had relatives in Charlotte and decided it was a good place to raise a family, so they relocated here. He became a policeman and she a school teacher. That was 17 years ago.

“The acting has really helped me in my career as an officer. I was an introvert but acting helped build my confidence and taught me how to relate to people,” he says. “It really prepared me for this career.”

Officer McTigue spent about 10 years on patrol in west Charlotte. Now, he works as a community coordinator there.

“I love the job, especially as a community officer. It’s opened my eyes to a whole other side of policing,” he says. “You find out what people really want and need and work to make that happen.”

He hasn’t, however, lost the urge to perform. His entire family is involved in the Intune School of the Arts, which is a program of Concord First Assembly Church.

He expects some of the community leaders from his patrol division to come see him perform as Daddy Warbucks in “Annie” this month. His wife is the show’s co-director and choreographer, and his two daughters are part of the cast. One of them plays Annie.

He says some of his peers and people he works with from the community think it’s cool that he performs on stage. Others don’t believe him when he first tells them. But he says their jaws tend to drop when they hear him sing.

“I get that it’s kind of unexpected,” he says. “But I believe I have that same ability to affect someone’s life on stage as I do on the street,” he said.

For more information about the coming show, which will be performed Dec. 8-10: https://www.intuneschool.com/ or Concordchristmas.com