Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
#1Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/23/21 at 6:18pmLin Manuel Miranda obviously comes to mind with this topic, but who are other creative forces that have acted in their plays or musicals?
“Somebody stop me before I sing again” - Bazzard
BCfitasafiddle
Broadway Legend Joined: 1/25/20
#2Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/23/21 at 6:19pm
NameGreg said: "Lin Manuel Miranda obviously comes to mind with this topic, but who are other creative forces that have acted in their plays or musicals?"
Comden & Green! On the Town.
#3Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/23/21 at 6:20pm
Jonathan Larson (Tick, Tick, Boom!)
Sara Bareilles (Waitress)
Dave Malloy (Natasha)
Doesn't really count but Sondheim (on Sondheim)
"You can't overrate Bernadette Peters. She is such a genius. There's a moment in "Too Many Mornings" and Bernadette doing 'I wore green the last time' - It's a voice that is just already given up - it is so sorrowful. Tragic. You can see from that moment the show is going to be headed into such dark territory and it hinges on this tiny throwaway moment of the voice." - Ben Brantley (2022)
"Bernadette's whole, stunning performance [as Rose in Gypsy] galvanized the actors capable of letting loose with her. Bernadette's Rose did take its rightful place, but too late, and unseen by too many who should have seen it" Arthur Laurents (2009)
"Sondheim's own favorite star performances? [Bernadette] Peters in ''Sunday in the Park,'' Lansbury in ''Sweeney Todd'' and ''obviously, Ethel was thrilling in 'Gypsy.'' Nytimes, 2000
Updated On: 5/23/21 at 06:20 PM
#4Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/23/21 at 6:41pm
Marc Shaiman in Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me
Billie Joe Armstrong in American Idiot
Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen in [title of show] and Now. Here. This.
Oh look, a bibu!
Updated On: 5/23/21 at 06:41 PM
BCfitasafiddle
Broadway Legend Joined: 1/25/20
#5Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/23/21 at 6:50pm
Also, the cast of Pump Boys and Dinettes.
Dollypop
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
#6Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/23/21 at 7:07pmJerry Herman in AN EVENING WITH JERRY HERMAN
"Long live God!" (GODSPELL)
pmensky
Broadway Star Joined: 7/18/11
#7Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/23/21 at 7:24pm
Christopher Durang as Vanya in “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” at the Bucks County Playhouse. Apparently he couldn’t remember his lines which is ironic.
#8Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/23/21 at 7:36pmNoel Coward was nicknamed The Master, because he was not only a great writer but a great interpreter of his own work, at a time when a double threat of that sort was extremely novel (and at a time when songwriters farmed out their work to others as a rule).
#9Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/23/21 at 7:39pm
It's quite common with solo shows, especially when you look Off, and Off-Off Broadway, and places like the Edinburgh fringe. So common, in fact, that's not even worth trying to name examples. Even if you exclude solo shows, it's still so common that we're unlikely to be able to name all of the examples in one thread. But for what it's worth, I keep a list of the examples I've seen personally (I'm a compulsively list-keeper by nature), excluding solo shows:
Larry David
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Sting
Dave Malloy
Harvey Fierstein
Sara Bereilles
Amy Staats
Cesar Alvarez
Ngozi Anyanwu
The Bengsons
Andrew Lippa
Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins
Nia Vardalos
Shaina Taub
Seth Rudetsky
Tracy Letts
Halley Feiffer
Kate Hammill
Grace McLean
#10Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/23/21 at 8:12pm
Anaïs Mitchell originated the role of Eurydice, when Hadestown was still in its early phases.
Alex Kulak2
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/11/16
#11Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/23/21 at 8:19pm
John Cariani's acted in a few productions of Almost, Maine. Stew played the narrator in Passing Strange, and got quadruple nominated at the Tonys (Best Book, Score, Orchestrations, and Leading Actor - Lin and Malloy can eat their hearts out).
#12Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/23/21 at 8:43pm
Some examples that I've seen:
Heidi Schreck (What the Constitution Means to Me)
John Mulaney and Nick Kroll (Oh, Hello)
Sherie Rene Scott (Everyday Rapture and Whorl Inside a Loop)
Bob Martin (The Drowsy Chaperone)
Heather Raffo (Noura)
James Ortiz (The Woodsman)
Kyle Jarrow and Lauren Worsham (The Wildness)
John Pollono (Small Engine Repair)
Geoff Sobelle (The Object Lesson)
Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen (Blood Play and Jacuzzi)
Dollypop
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
#13Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/23/21 at 10:54pm
William Shakespeare in THE TEMPEST
"Long live God!" (GODSPELL)
#14Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/23/21 at 10:56pm
Gerome Ragni and James Rado played Berger and Claude, respectively, in the original Broadway and L.A. casts of Hair.
Formerly gvendo2005
Broadway Legend
joined: 5/1/05
Blocked: After Eight, suestorm, david_fick, emlodik, lovebwy, Dave28282, joevitus, BorisTomashevsky, Seb28
Broadway Legend
joined: 5/1/05
Blocked: After Eight, suestorm, david_fick, emlodik, lovebwy, Dave28282, joevitus, BorisTomashevsky, Seb28
Alexander Lamar
Broadway Star Joined: 2/16/16
#15Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/23/21 at 11:17pm
Sherie Renee Scott - Everyday Rapture
Shoshana Bean - Dear John Mayer
Anna Deveare Smith has starred in multiple plays she has written.
Bowen and Bell - Title of Show
Griffin Matthews - Witness Uganda
Colman Domingo - A Boy and His Soul
Anthony Wayne - Mighty Real
Stew - Passing Strange
Bob Martin - Drowsy Chaperone
brettarnett
Featured Actor Joined: 5/2/09
#16Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/23/21 at 11:38pm
John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask in Hedwig
Ravenclaw
Leading Actor Joined: 9/16/17
#17Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/24/21 at 12:15am
Harold Pinter has acted in several of his plays.
Tracy Letts said on several occasions that he did not intend to act in any of his own plays, but then he did in the Broadway mounting of The Minutes.
sorano916
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/6/08
#18Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/24/21 at 3:04amHenry Lewis, Henry Shields, and Jonathan Sayer from the Mischief Theatre Company have written and performed in all of their major productions.
#19Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/24/21 at 8:50am
Louis Jenkins and Mark Rylance were in Nice Fish
lachri5
Featured Actor Joined: 1/4/11
#20Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/24/21 at 9:36am
Jason Robert Brown in The Last 5 Years
Nathan Lane in The Frogs
Andrew R. Butler in Rags Parkland
Heather Christian in Animal Wisdom
#21Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/24/21 at 10:09am
For all I said above, turns out this thread is actually helping me realize there are gaps in my list: several of the names mentioned above were people I had seen, but forgot to put on my list. For example, I totally forgot that Heather Raffo played the lead in Noura.
henrikegerman
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/05
#22Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/24/21 at 8:44pm
also George M. Cohan
#23Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/24/21 at 9:01pm
Harvey Fierstein - Torch Song Trilogy. Perfection
#24Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/24/21 at 9:23pm
Ivor Novello
Non sibi sed patriae
henrikegerman
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/05
#25Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works
Posted: 5/25/21 at 7:45am
Ruth Gordon starred in several of her own plays
Elaine Stritch
Lynn Redgrave
David Hare
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