Tighe made his Broadway debut at the Music Box Theatre in the play, "Open Admissions"; the show closed after two weeks. He then acted in "Night of the Iguana" with McCarter Theatre Company, in Princeton, NJ; Mark Weller's "The Ballad of Soapy Smith" in 1983 at the Seattle Repertory Theatre in Seattle; and the New York Shakespeare Festival at the Public Theatre in New York City. In 1989, he received an NEA fellowship at the Seattle Repertory Theatre. Tighe also wrote and directed "Homegirl" for the Seattle Repertory Theatre in 1986.