Most Famous "Theater Person"

Who is currently the most famous "theater person" working? By that I mean someone who, though known, preferably well-known to the theater public, is most known or most successfully employed in theater, not film or TV- hence none of the Glee cast quite qualify, as their runaway TV success has made Glee, not Hairspray or Spring Awakening, their number one achievement so far. Not a film superstar who does some Broadway- a person who can be definitively called "mostly a theater person" who is still well-known and recognizable.

The two that are jumping to mind for me are Jane Krakowski and Jesse Tyler Ferguson.

its is beatrice bebe neuwirth

Hunter Foster
Jen Cody
Merideth Patterson

But not in that order.

---

Patti LuPone.

---

I think you have Jesse Tyler Ferguson confused with "Clarissa Explains it All" actor Jason Zimbler (yes, I had to look it up). The resemblance is uncanny, but from what I can google, it's a different guy.

I think they must be twins separated at birth.

Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone, Angela Lansbury, Nathan Lane, Bebe Neuwirth

and more recently: Jane Krakowski, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Kristin Chenoweth, Lea Michele, Matthew Morrison

---

The reason for the Glee exemption is that the amount of high-profile tv work the Glee cast have, being in a show that became a massive phenomenon and sold huge amounts of soundtrack material, essentially overshadows most of the theater work they did in terms of success.

Jesse Tyler ferguson is a Broadway character actor who has performed in some well-known shows and currently plays a role on a fairly successful sitcom, but the bulk of his career success lies on the stage. Ditto for Krakowski, who was a hugely successful stage star who parlayed that into being a character actress on TV.

The success and popularity of Glee renders "Light in the Piazza" or "Spring Awakening" secondary in a way that Modern Family or 30 Rock, good shows but not ICONIC television of the past few years, don't necessarily do for "Putnam County Spelling Bee" or "Nine."

While they've gained fame from other mediums (media?), the following are, in my mind, the most famous for their theatre roles and as theatre actors:

Bernadette Peters
Patti LuPone
Angela Lansbury (this is debatable depending on what generation you are- she began on TV, but many people don't know her from "Murder She Wrote")
Elaine Stritch
Audra McDonald (minus Private Practice, which I really don't know how many people watch)
Joel Grey

I feel there should be another category of people who have done pretty much exclusively famous and are not "famous" per se, but they've been extremely successful:
Marin Mazzie
Sutton Foster
Christine Ebersole

If you are talking about most employed, as in people who get cast constantly, it's different. There are people like Marin Mazzie who are cast in many great roles, but the most employed are generally the gypsies, who go from ensemble to ensemble. Jen Cody (as someone else said) comes to mind.

Angela Lansbury has 3 Oscar nominations. No wins.

Julie Andrews?

Julie Andrews only had the four theatre roles, huh? Yeah, they're iconic Broadway roles, but ask a random person off the street who originated Eliza in My Fair Lady on Broadway or Guinevere in Camelot, and watch their expression go blank. Hell, ask them to name anything she did beyond Mary Poppins and Sound of Music, and odds are at least even you'll get the same look (and they diminish sharply if the person is neither a gay man [and thus likely to know Victor/Victoria] or a twelve-year-old girl [and into the Princess Diaries...]).

I love Julie Andrews to bits and pieces and wish people knew her for more than MP and SoM, but I don't think they do.

ETA: Also, Julie Andrews isn't currently working in theater... certainly not singing, anyway

Updated On: 3/7/11 at 01:58 AM

Liza?