Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works

[NameGreg]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#1

Posted: 5/23/21 at 6:18pm

Lin 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]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#2

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.

[binau]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#3

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)

Give me claws and a hunch, just away from this bunch.

Updated On: 5/23/21 at 06:20 PM

[EDSOSLO858]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#4

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.

 

We are the New York Knicks! / We are the New York Knicks! / We are the New York Knicks! / We are the New York Knicks! / Say "Go New York, go New York, go!” / (Go New York, go New York, go!) / Say "Go New York, go New York, go!" / (Go New York, go New York, go!)

Updated On: 5/23/21 at 06:41 PM

[BCfitasafiddle]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#5

Posted: 5/23/21 at 6:50pm

Also, the cast of Pump Boys and Dinettes.

[Dollypop]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#6

Posted: 5/23/21 at 7:07pm

Jerry Herman in AN EVENING WITH JERRY HERMAN

"Long live God!" (GODSPELL)

[pmensky]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#7

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.

[darquegk]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#8

Posted: 5/23/21 at 7:36pm

Noel 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).

[JBroadway]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#9

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 

 

 

[AndreyIsntHere]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#10

Posted: 5/23/21 at 8:12pm

Anaïs Mitchell originated the role of Eurydice, when Hadestown was still in its early phases. 

[Alex Kulak2]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#11

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).

[BroadwayGuy12]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#12

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]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#13

Posted: 5/23/21 at 10:54pm

William Shakespeare in THE TEMPEST

"Long live God!" (GODSPELL)

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#14

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

[Alexander Lamar]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#15

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

Updated On: 5/23/21 at 11:17 PM

[brettarnett]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#16

Posted: 5/23/21 at 11:38pm

John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask in Hedwig

[Ravenclaw]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#17

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.

Updated On: 5/24/21 at 12:15 AM

[sorano916]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#18

Posted: 5/24/21 at 3:04am

Henry Lewis, Henry Shields, and Jonathan Sayer from the Mischief Theatre Company have written and performed in all of their major productions.

[Wee Thomas2]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#19

Posted: 5/24/21 at 8:50am

Louis Jenkins and Mark Rylance were in Nice Fish

[lachri5]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#20

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

Updated On: 5/24/21 at 09:36 AM

[JBroadway]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#21

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]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#22

Posted: 5/24/21 at 8:44pm

also George M. Cohan 

 

[George in DC]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#23

Posted: 5/24/21 at 9:01pm

Harvey Fierstein - Torch Song Trilogy.  Perfection

[Highland Guy]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#24

Posted: 5/24/21 at 9:23pm

Ivor Novello

 

 

Non sibi sed patriae

[henrikegerman]

Playwrights and Composers Who Have Acted in Their Own Works#25

Posted: 5/25/21 at 7:45am

Ruth Gordon starred in several of her own plays 
Elaine Stritch 
Lynn Redgrave 
David Hare