Actors with Roots

7 Great Performers You’ll Have to Travel to See

Here we are in Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, Montgomery, Ala., New York City, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Why the continental tour? To catch up with seven actors at the top of their game—actors we wouldn’t be likely to encounter unless we hit the road and visited the theatre communities in which they’ve put down roots, creating long-term relationships with local audiences and fashioning lives (as well as livelihoods) for themselves as working artists.

Why these seven, out of the many hundreds of American actors who have made the career commitment to work in their own cities or regions? These seven are performers that audiences, critics and theatre professionals around the country called to our attention—performers who have made an unforgettable impression on far-flung American stages and who will be assaying important roles in the coming 2006-07 theatrical season.

Okay, we confess: Our informants around the country offered up dozens of names of top-flight actors they admired for all sorts of reasons, and paring down the list to a manageable seven was tantamount to tossing the dice. But when you read this compilation of lively mini-profiles, written by arts reporters who’ve followed these actors’ careers in their own communities, you’ll figure that the gamble paid off handsomely.

Welcome to seven American cities, seven theatrical landscapes, seven American stories: actors with roots. —Jim O’Quinn