Marcus Lovett (born in 1965 in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, USA) is an American singer and actor who was born in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. He is known for his roles in musical theatre. His credits include leading roles in The Phantom of the Opera, Aspects of Love , Carousel and King David. [1]
An actor, singer and athlete from childhood, Lovett graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with honors. His classmates included the actress Ming Na Wen. Lovett then immediately joined the original Broadway production of Les Miserables as an understudy for the role of Marius Pontmercy. He simultaneously appeared on ABC's One Life to Live . Additional Broadway and West End roles included leads in Aspects of Love (as Alex), The Phantom of the Opera (as The Phantom), and King David (as David), and Off-Broadway plays and musicals, including the Bruce Hornsby show, SCKBSTD . [2] [3] He originated the role of The Man in Whistle Down the Wind on the West End and appears on the original cast recording. [4]
In 1994, Lovett made the front page of the New York Times by performing the lead in two Broadway shows in two days. After his final performance as The Phantom of the Opera (After which Jeff Keller took over), Lovett was asked to learn the role of Billy Bigelow in Carousel as an emergency replacement for the show's ailing star; in an unusual move, Lincoln Center had temporarily closed its production. 47 hours later, Lovett appeared at the Vivian Beaumont Theater as the tragic Bigelow. He would stay with the show after this serving as Michael Hayden's standby when he returned from his absence. [5] [6] He also participated in Andrew Lloyd Webber's 50th birthday concert at the Royal Albert Hall.
From 3 September 2012 to 31 August 2013, he reprised the role of The Phantom of the Opera, this time at Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End of London. Michael Crawford, Peter Jöback, and Lovett are the only people to play the Phantom in London and on Broadway. [7] [8]
Lovett's voice is the trademark for Good Morning America, This Week with George Stephanopoulos and, for seventeen years, The David Letterman Show, in addition to thousands of commercials and promotions for television and radio. [9] His job requires a live recording studio whenever he travels: to that end, he maintains studios in the San Francisco Bay Area, Manhattan, Los Angeles and Carmel, New York, where he maintains his primary residence. [10] He also is the founder of the non profit organization, JoinedHands.
He was married to Leslie Motiwalla on June 18, 2022.
Carousel is the second musical by the team of Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II. The 1945 work was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play Liliom, transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline. The story revolves around carousel barker Billy Bigelow, whose romance with millworker Julie Jordan comes at the price of both their jobs. He participates in a robbery to provide for Julie and their unborn child; after it goes tragically wrong, he is given a chance to make things right. A secondary plot line deals with millworker Carrie Pipperidge and her romance with ambitious fisherman Enoch Snow. The show includes the well-known songs "If I Loved You", "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" and "You'll Never Walk Alone". Richard Rodgers later wrote that Carousel was his favorite of all his musicals.
The Phantom of the Opera is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Charles Hart, additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe, and a libretto by Lloyd Webber and Stilgoe. Based on the novel by Gaston Leroux, it tells the tragic story of beautiful soprano Christine Daaé, who becomes the obsession of a mysterious and disfigured musical genius living in the subterranean labyrinth beneath the Paris Opéra House.
Michael Frank Park is an American actor, best known for his roles as Jack Snyder on As the World Turns, Larry Murphy in the original Broadway cast of Dear Evan Hansen (2016), and reporter Tom Holloway in the third season of the Netflix series Stranger Things (2019).
Mary Beth Peil is an American actress and soprano. She began her career as an opera singer in 1962 with the Goldovsky Opera Theater. In 1964 she won two major singing competitions, the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions; the latter of which earned her a contract with the Metropolitan Opera National Company with whom she performed in two seasons of national tours as a leading soprano from 1965 to 1967. She continued to perform in operas through the 1970s, notably creating the role of Alma in the world premiere of Lee Hoiby's Summer and Smoke at the Minnesota Opera in 1971. She later recorded that role for American television in 1982. With that same opera company she transitioned into musical theatre, performing the title role of Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate in 1983. Later that year she joined the national tour of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I as Anna Leonowens opposite Yul Brynner, and continued with that production when it opened on Broadway on January 7, 1985. She was nominated for a Tony Award for her portrayal.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, also known as Sweeney Todd is a 1979 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. It is based on the 1970 play Sweeney Todd by Christopher Bond. The character of Sweeney Todd first appeared in a Victorian penny dreadful titled The String of Pearls.
Richard White is an American actor and opera singer best known for voicing the character of Gaston in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. He also voiced the character in the early 2000s animated TV series House of Mouse and the 2023 works Lego Disney Princess: The Castle Quest, Disney Speedstorm, Once Upon a Studio, and Disney Dreamlight Valley.
Robert Cuccioli is an American actor and singer. He is best known for originating the lead dual title roles in the musical Jekyll & Hyde, for which he received a Tony Award nomination and won the Joseph Jefferson Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, and the Fany Award for outstanding actor in a musical.
Judy Kaye is an American singer and actress. She has appeared in stage musicals, plays, and operas. Kaye has been in long runs on Broadway in the musicals The Phantom of the Opera, Ragtime, Mamma Mia!, and Nice Work If You Can Get It.
Rodney Gilfry is a leading American operatic baritone. After launching his career at Frankfurt Opera in 1987, Gilfry quickly established a reputation for stylish singing and acting. A renowned Mozart specialist, he has given acclaimed performances as Don Giovanni, Count Almaviva, Guglielmo, and Papageno, and is also known for his work in roles from the standard baritone repertoire.
James Barbour is an American singer and theatre actor who played the title role in the Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera from February 2015 until December 2017. Among his other credits are the Beast in Beauty and the Beast and Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities, for which he was nominated for a Drama Desk Award.
Robert Hugh "Hadley" Fraser is an English actor and singer. He made his West End debut as Marius Pontmercy in Les Misérables. He also originated the role of Tiernan in the Broadway show The Pirate Queen.
Richard Cray is an American actor and singer.
Teatro, Italian for "theatre", is a vocal group signed to the Sony BMG music label. The members of Teatro are Jeremiah James, Andrew Alexander, Simon Bailey and Stephen Rahman-Hughes.
Brent Barrett is an American actor and tenor who is mostly known for his work within American theatre. Barrett has performed in musicals and in concerts with theatres, symphony orchestras, opera houses, and concert halls internationally. He starred in the original production of Maltby and Shire's hit Off-Broadway musical Closer Than Ever in 1989 and the 2001 West End revival of Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate. He has also appeared sporadically on television and in films.
Eddie Korbich is an American actor, singer and dancer. He was born in Washington, D.C., but grew up in Shamokin, Pennsylvania.
Michael Hayden is an actor who has appeared both on the Broadway and West End stage, as well as on television. His best known role was Billy Bigelow in the stage musical, Carousel. He received both Laurence Olivier Award and Drama Desk Award nominations for his performance in the role.
David Anthony Stuart Atkinson was a Canadian baritone and New York Broadway actor/singer. Most of his career was spent performing in musicals and operettas in New York City from the late 1940s through the early 1970s, although he did appear in some operas and made a few television appearances. In 1952 he created the role of Sam in the world premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti. From 1956-1962 he was a leading performer at the New York City Opera where he starred in several musicals and appeared in the world premieres of several English language operas. His greatest success on the stage came late in his career: the role of Cervantes in Man of La Mancha which he portrayed in the original Broadway production, the 1968 national tour, and in the 1972 Broadway revival.
James Randall Snyder is an American actor and singer. He graduated from Christian Brothers High School in Sacramento, California and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the USC School of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles, where he was a member of the SoCal VoCals, USC's premiere a cappella group.
Duane Boutté is an American actor, director, and composer known in film for his portrayal of "Bostonia" in Nigel Finch's Stonewall (1995), and as young "Bruce Nugent" in Rodney Evans' Brother to Brother (2004). Boutté was in the original Broadway company of Parade, and played "Enoch Snow, Jr." in the 1994 TONY Award-winning revival of Carousel. His television acting credits date from the 1980s and include episodes of What's Happening Now, A Year in the Life, Sex and the City, and the made-for-television movie The Drug Knot, directed by Happy Days star, Anson Williams.
Bruce Patane Altomari Yarnell was an American film, television, theatre actor and singer. He was known for playing the role of Deputy Marshal Chalk Breeson in the final season of the American western television series Outlaws. As a baritone, he performed in musicals such as Annie Get Your Gun, Bye Bye Birdie, Carousel, and Oklahoma!.