Shuler Hensley | |
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 Hensley in 2022 | |
| Born | Shuler Paul Hensley March 6, 1967 |
| Education | University of Georgia Manhattan School of Music (BM) Curtis Institute of Music (MM) |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Spouse | Paula DeRosa |
| Children | 2 |
| Website | shulerhensley |
Shuler Paul Hensley (born March 6, 1967) is an American singer and actor.
Hensley was born in Atlanta, Georgia. The youngest of three children, Hensley grew up in Marietta, Georgia. His father, Sam P. Hensley Jr., is a former Georgia Tech football star, retired civil engineer and former state senator. His mother, Iris Hensley, (née Antley), was a ballerina, and later, Founder and Artistic Director of the Georgia Ballet ** Professional Company and school. [1] [2] Hensley had an early start in show business at the age of four when he appeared as Fritz in her production of The Nutcracker .
He was educated at The Westminster Schools and attended the University of Georgia on a baseball scholarship. After attending a recital by Jessye Norman and being cast as Judge Turpin in a college production of Sweeney Todd , he decided to transfer after his second year to the Manhattan School of Music, where he majored in opera and graduated in 1989. From there, he went to the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, and obtained his master's degree in 1993.
Hensley's stage career began in the early 1990s with roles such as Pitkin in On the Town , Joe in The Most Happy Fella , and Miles Gloriosus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum , He has also sung in the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas Pirates of Penzance and Patience and in the operas Carmen , Faust , La bohème and Don Giovanni . And in addition to an early Oklahoma! casting as Jud Fry at the North Shore Music Theatre, Boston, Shuler also played Curly at the Skylight Opera Theatre, Milwaukee.
In 1996, he went to Hamburg, Germany to perform the title role in The Phantom of the Opera in German.
In 1998, he was cast as Jud Fry for London's National Theatre production of Oklahoma! The revival was a huge success and Hensley received wonderful personal notices as well as the Olivier Award. He continued to play the role when the show transferred to the West End (1999), the only American native in the cast, and then to Broadway (2002–2003), where he won a Tony, a Drama Desk Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award for the same role.
He has performed on several occasions with Hugh Jackman. They both performed in the musical Oklahoma! in London in 1998, as well as in the films Someone Like You , and Van Helsing , in the latter of which Hensley played Frankenstein's monster and also performed reference motion capture as Mr. Hyde. He cameoed in The Greatest Showman which starred Jackman. In 2021, Hensley and Jackman starred as Marcellus Washburn and Harold Hill in the broadway revival of The Music Man
Hensley also starred in the Broadway production of Young Frankenstein as the Monster. For this role he was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical. [3] He also reprised the role in the United States national tour which also featured his former co-stars Roger Bart and Cory English. [4] He again played the role in the 2017 West End production. [5] [6]
In 2011 he portrayed American Yiddish theatre great Boris Thomashefsky in The Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater, a concert stage show celebrating the Thomashefskys and the music of Yiddish theatre, hosted by their grandson the conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. The show aired on the PBS series Great Performances in 2012. [7]
In 2012 he starred as a 600-pound man in the Off Broadway production of The Whale at Playwrights Horizons. [8]
In April–May 2015, Hensley sang the role of the Celebrant in Leonard Bernstein's Mass, in a concert version with the Philadelphia Orchestra under conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin. [9] Later that year he appeared in a Tokyo production of Hal Prince's Prince of Broadway . [10]
In fall 2016, Hensley co-starred with Sutton Foster in The New Group's revival of Sweet Charity . [11]
The Georgia High School Musical Theatre Awards are also known as the Shuler Hensley Awards in his honor. The winners of these awards qualify to go on to the national Jimmy Awards. [12]
Stage productionsBroadway
Off-Broadway
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Oklahoma! is the first musical written by the duo of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs's 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in farm country outside the town of Claremore, Indian Territory, in 1906, it tells the story of farm girl Laurey Williams and her courtship by two rival suitors, cowboy Curly McLain and the sinister and frightening farmhand Jud Fry. A secondary romance concerns cowboy Will Parker and his flirtatious fiancée, Ado Annie.
The Music Man is a musical with book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Willson, based on a story by Willson and Franklin Lacey. The plot concerns con man Harold Hill, who poses as a boys' band organizer and leader and sells band instruments and uniforms to naïve Midwestern townsfolk, promising to train the members of the new band. Harold is no musician, however, and plans to skip town without giving any music lessons. Prim librarian and piano teacher Marian sees through him, but when Harold helps her younger brother overcome his lisp and social awkwardness, Marian begins to fall in love with him. He risks being caught to win her heart.
Susan P. Stroman is an American theatre director, choreographer, film director and performer. Her notable theater productions include Oklahoma!, The Music Man, Crazy for You, Contact, The Producers, The Frogs, The Scottsboro Boys, Bullets Over Broadway, POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, and New York, New York.
Boris Thomashefsky, born Boruch-Aharon Thomashefsky, was a Ukrainian-born Jewish singer and actor who became one of the biggest stars in Yiddish theater.
Roger Bart is an American actor and singer. He won a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award for his performance as Snoopy in the 1999 revival of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.
Stephanie Janette Block is an American actress and singer, best known for her work on the Broadway stage.
Brian d'Arcy James is an American actor and musician. He is known primarily for his Broadway roles, including Shrek in Shrek the Musical, Nick Bottom in Something Rotten!, King George III in Hamilton, and the Baker in Into the Woods, and has received four Tony Award nominations for his work. On-screen, he is known for his recurring role as Andy Baker on the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why, Officer Krupke in West Side Story, and reporter Matt Carroll in Spotlight.
John Doyle is a Scottish stage director of musicals and plays, as well as operas. He served as artistic director at several regional theatres in the United Kingdom, where he staged more than 200 professional productions during his career spanning over 40 years.
Jack O'Brien is an American director, producer, writer and lyricist. He served as the Artistic Director of the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, California from 1981 through the end of 2007.
Christopher Cantwell Fitzgerald is an American actor and singer. He is known for his role as Boq in the musical Wicked, Igor in the musical Young Frankenstein, and Ogie Anhorn in the musical Waitress. He earned Outer Critics Circle Award, Drama Desk Award, and Tony Award nominations for his performances in Waitress and Young Frankenstein and won the Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for his performance in Waitress.
Emily Skinner, also known as Emily Scott Skinner, is a Tony-nominated American actress and singer. She has played leading roles in 10 Broadway productions including New York, New York, Prince of Broadway, The Cher Show, Side Show, Jekyll & Hyde, James Joyce's The Dead, The Full Monty, Dinner at Eight, Billy Elliot, as well as the Actor's Fund Broadway concerts of Dreamgirls and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. She has sung on concert stages around the world and on numerous recordings.
Andy Karl is an American actor and singer, best known for performing in musical theatre.
Martin Vidnovic is an American actor and singer.
Maryann Plunkett is an American actress and singer. Plunkett made her Broadway debut playing Sister Agnes in Agnes of God. In 1987, she won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for her performance as Sally Smith in Me and My Girl. In addition, she has made appearances in various films and series’ such as Little Women, Manifest, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, and Dr. Death.
Young Frankenstein is a musical with a book by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan, and music and lyrics by Brooks. It is based on the 1974 comedy film of the same name written by Gene Wilder and Brooks who also directed and has described it as his best film. It is a parody of the horror film genre, especially the 1931 Universal Pictures adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and its 1935 and 1939 sequels, Bride of Frankenstein and Son of Frankenstein.
Warren Carlyle is a British director and choreographer who was born in Norwich, Norfolk, England. He received Drama Desk Award nominations for Outstanding Choreography and Outstanding Director of a Musical for the 2009 revival of Finian's Rainbow.
Phillip Boykin is an American actor and bass-baritone singer. He currently portrays Hades in the Broadway production of Hadestown.
Jay Armstrong Johnson is an American actor, singer, and dancer, known for starring roles on Broadway in musicals like Parade, On the Town, and The Phantom of the Opera and for his portrayal of Will Olsen in the ABC television series Quantico.
Bruce Coughlin is an American orchestrator and musical arranger. He has won a Tony Award, a Drama Desk Award, and an Obie Award.
Jana Robbins, née Marsha Eisenberg, is a Tony, Olivier and Drama Desk Award-winning American producer, actress, director, teacher, and speaker. She has produced and won awards for her West End, Broadway and Off-Broadway productions.
The plot features Frederick (Hadley Fraser), the grandson of Dr Frankenstein, ending up in Transylvania Heights, in 1934, and building another monster (Shuler Hensley).
And you've got one original cast member, Shuler Hensley? Yes, the entire cast is British other than Shuler!
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