Andrew Briedis | |
---|---|
Occupation | Writer |
Years active | 2012 - Present |
Andrew Briedis is an American writer, comedian, satirist, and actor. He is best known for creating the satirical Internet personality Annoying Actor Friend. [1] He has written for Saturday Night Live and appeared on Netflix's Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt . [2]
Briedis grew up in San Diego, CA [3] and attended La Costa Canyon High School (LCC), [4] then The Hartt School where he pursued a degree in theatre. [5]
In 2012, Briedis launched Annoying Actor Friend on Twitter. The account initially operated anonymously and satirized the social media behavior of actors, specifically those who work in the Broadway industry. It immediately caught the attention of the theatrical community, inspiring Briedis to write a book under the pseudonym entitled #SOBLESSED: The Annoying Actor Friend's Guide to Werking in Show Business which debuted on Amazon as the #1 Theater and Parody book in 2013. [6] An audiobook benefiting Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS was released in 2014 and features a voice cast of Alan Cumming, Megan Hilty, Lesli Margherita, Will Swenson, Keala Settle, Tituss Burgess, Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Krysta Rodriguez, and Brian Dennehy. [7] A sequel to #SOBLESSED entitled #GRATEFUL: Everything Happens for a Reason was released in 2015. [8]
Briedis revealed his identity in 2015 [9] and was nominated for a Shorty Award honoring excellence in Social Media for his work on Annoying Actor Friend. [10]
Briedis has served as a guest writer for Saturday Night Live . [11] He currently writes and performs on the web series Turning the Tables. [12]
Christopher Ferdinand Durang was an American playwright known for works of outrageous and often absurd comedy. His work was especially popular in the 1980s, though his career seemed to get a second wind in the late 1990s.
Patti Ann LuPone is an American actress and singer best known for her work in musical theater. After starting her professional career with The Acting Company in 1972 she soon gained acclaim for her leading performances on the Broadway and West End stage. She has won three Tony Awards, two Olivier Awards, and two Grammy Awards, and was a 2006 inductee to the American Theater Hall of Fame.
William Alan Finn is an American composer and lyricist. He is best known for his musicals, which include Falsettos, for which he won the 1992 Tony Awards for Best Original Score and Best Book of a Musical, A New Brain (1998), and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (2005).
James Elliot Lapine is an American stage director, playwright, screenwriter, and librettist. He has won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical three times, for Into the Woods, Falsettos, and Passion. He has frequently collaborated with Stephen Sondheim and William Finn.
Playbill is an American monthly magazine for theatergoers. Although there is a subscription issue available for home delivery, most copies of Playbill are printed for particular productions and distributed at the door as the show's program.
Joseph Mantello is an American actor and director known for his work on stage and screen. He first gained prominence for his Broadway acting debut in the original production of Tony Kushner's two-part epic play Angels in America (1993–1994) for which he received a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play nomination. He has since acted in acclaimed Broadway revivals of Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart (2011) and Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie (2017).
Theodore Raymond Knight is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Dr. George O'Malley on the ABC medical drama television series Grey's Anatomy, which earned him a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2007.
Denise Dillon is an American actress and comedian best known for starring as Toby Pedalbee on the HBO comedy Dream On from 1990 to 1996. Dillon was first known for her stage work and was nominated for a Tony Award on Broadway. Other television credits include spending one season as a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1980 to 1981 and co-starring on the Fox sitcom Women in Prison. She subsequently continued to act in theater and both teaches and performs improv comedy.
Andrew Scott Rannells is an American actor. He is best known for originating the role of Elder Kevin Price in the 2011 Broadway musical The Book of Mormon, for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical and won the 2012 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. He received his second Tony nomination in 2017 for his performance as Whizzer in the 2016 Broadway revival of Falsettos. Other Broadway credits include Hairspray (2005), Jersey Boys (2009), Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2014), Hamilton (2015), The Boys in the Band (2018), and Gutenberg! The Musical! (2023). For his performance in the Off West End production of Tammy Faye, he was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award.
Seth Dennis Rudetsky is an American musician, actor, writer and radio host. He currently is the host of Seth's Big Fat Broadway and Seth Speaks on Sirius/XM Satellite Radio's On Broadway. The show focuses on Rudetsky's knowledge of Broadway theatre history and trivia.
Robb Sapp is an American actor and singer who has appeared in musicals, both on Broadway and Off-Broadway as well as in regional theatre.
Spring Awakening is a coming-of-age rock musical with music by Duncan Sheik and a book and lyrics by Steven Sater. It is based on the 1891 German play Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind. Set in late 19th-century Germany, the musical tells the story of teenagers discovering the inner and outer tumult of adolescent sexuality. In the musical, alternative rock is employed as part of the folk-infused rock score.
The Soho Repertory Theatre, known as Soho Rep, is an American Off-Broadway theater company based in New York City which is notable for producing avant-garde plays by contemporary writers. The company, described as a "cultural pillar", is currently located in a 65-seat theatre in the TriBeCa section of lower Manhattan. The company, and the projects it has produced, have won multiple prizes and earned critical acclaim, including numerous Obie Awards, Drama Desk Awards, Drama Critics' Circle Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize. A recent highlight was winning the Drama Desk Award for Sustained Achievement for "nearly four decades of artistic distinction, innovative production, and provocative play selection."
Anna Davida Shapiro is an American theater director, was the artistic director of the Steppenwolf Theater Company, and a professor at Northwestern University. Throughout her career, she has directed both the Steppenwolf Theater Company production of August: Osage County (2007) along with its Broadway debut (2008-2009), the Broadway debuts of The Motherfucker with the Hat (2011) and Fish in the Dark (2014), and Broadway revivals of This Is Our Youth and Of Mice and Men, both in 2014. She won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for her direction of August: Osage County.
Laurence Crawford "Larry" O'Keefe is an American composer and lyricist for Broadway musicals, film and television. He won the 2001 Lucille Lortel Award, Outstanding Musical as composer for Bat Boy: The Musical.
Matthew James Elwyn Thomas, also occasionally credited as Matthew Thomas, is a British actor who has made appearances in television, film, and theater. He is known for his television roles including the BAFTA and Emmy Award-winning, The Lost Prince, and the ITV drama-musical show, Britannia High. In the U.S., Thomas is best known for having played the title role in the 2013 Broadway revival of Pippin, which received a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical. He was also a late addition to the U.S. national tour of Pippin in 2014. He had his Broadway debut in 2010 playing Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark directed by Julie Taymor, with music by U2's Bono and Edge.
Clark Gesner was an American composer, songwriter, author, and actor. He is best known for composing the musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, based on the Charles M. Schulz comic strip Peanuts.
It's Only a Play is a play by Terrence McNally. The play originally opened off-off-Broadway in 1982. It was revived off-Broadway in 1986, and on Broadway in 2014. The plot concerns a party where a producer, playwright, director, actors and their friends eagerly wait for the opening night reviews of their Broadway play.
Annoying Actor Friend is a satirical Internet personality, created to make cultural commentary on the Broadway theatre industry. For over three years, Annoying Actor Friend operated anonymously, and on December 9, 2015, its identity was revealed as writer Andrew Briedis.
Alexander Michael Brightman is an American actor and singer, best known for his work in musical theatre, specifically as Dewey Finn in the musical adaptation of School of Rock and the titular character in Beetlejuice The Musical. Both roles earned him nominations for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical in 2016 and 2019 respectively. Since 2020, he has starred as Robo Fizz and Fizzarolli in the adult animated musical series Helluva Boss, and since 2024, he has starred as Sir Pentious and Adam in Hazbin Hotel.