Dennis Boutsikaris
Encyclopedia
Dennis Boutsikaris is an American
two-time Obie-Award
winning character actor. He is a Broadway Actor and frequent television guest star and leading man in made-for-TV movies. He is also an Audie Award
winning narrator of audiobooks.
} to a Greek American
father and Jewish mother, and grew up in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey
. A graduate of Hampshire College
in Amherst, Massachusetts
, Boutsikaris toured the country with John Houseman
's The Acting Company
doing classical theatre. On Broadway
he became the first American
to play Mozart
in Amadeus
, and was directed by Laurence Olivier
in Filumena. He was married to actress Deborah Hedwall, who later co-starred with him in the Off-Broadway production of Sight Unseen
to great critical acclaim. They divorced in 2002.
He has received two Obie Award
s: one in 1985 for Outstanding Performance in Nest of the Woodgrouse at the New York Shakespeare Festival
, directed by Joseph Papp
; and one in 1992 for Outstanding Performance in Sight Unseen at the Manhattan Theatre Club
. He also received a Drama Desk Award
nomination for Best Actor for Sight Unseen, as well as a Cable ACE nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Chasing the Dragon in 1995. He was nominated for a People's Choice Award as best Newcomer.
His film credits include leading roles in *batteries not included
, The Dream Team
, Crocodile Dundee 2, Boys on the Side
and In Dreams
, among many others. His most recent indie films include Cherry Crush, The Education of Charlie Banks, and Calling it Quits for which he received the Best Actor Award at the Staten Island Film Festival and the Long island Film Festival. He is Paul Wolfowitz in Oliver Stone's "W".
On television he had the lead in the series Stat, The Jackie Thomas Show
, and Misery Loves Company
. He has also had recurring roles on Sidney Lumet
's 100 Centre Street
, Nurse
, Trinity
, ER
, Law & Order
and, most recently, on Showtime's 'Shameless.
He has starred in over 20 TV Movies, including Chasing the Dragon
(with Markie Post), And Then There Was One, (with Amy Madigan) Three Faces of Karen, (with Gail O'Grady) Survival on the Mountain, Beyond Betrayal, and in as Woody Allen
in the miniseries Love and Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story (with Patsy Kensit).
He has been seen on Broadway in Bent
, Filumena (directed by Sir Laurence Olivier
), and Amadeus
(as the first American to play Mozart
) with Frank Langella
. He was seen in the Delacorte Theatre's production of Julius Caesar
as Cassius
. He was in the original New York productions of The Boys Next Door
, A Picasso, and the revival of That Championship Season
.
Off-Broadway he is probably best known for playing Jonathan Waxman in the original production of Sight Unseen at the Manhattan Theatre Club
and later at the Orpheum Theatre. He received the Obie Award
and a nomination for a Drama Desk Award
for this performance. At the Geffen Theatre in Los Angeles he appeared in the premiere of David Mamet
's The Old Neighborhood and in 2007 Jane Anderson
's The Quality of Life with Laurie Metcalf and Jo Beth Williams. For that performance he received the Backstage West Garland Award for Best Actor and was nominated for Best Actor by the L.A. Critics Drama Circle and by the LA Alliance Ovation Awards.
In 2009 he was in the Broadway revivals of Brighton Beach Memoirs
and Broadway Bound
. The First, BRIGHTON BEACH, opened to wide critical acclaim and then closed one week later. Much has been written regarding the demise, but all fingers have pointed to mishandling by the producers. BROADWAY BOUND never opened.
He continued his association with Laurie Metcalf appearing with her in THE OTHER PLACE Off-Broadway.
He can be heard in over 100 audiobooks and has received five Audie Awards
and two Best Voices of the Year Awards from AudioFile Magazine
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
two-time Obie-Award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
winning character actor. He is a Broadway Actor and frequent television guest star and leading man in made-for-TV movies. He is also an Audie Award
Audie Awards
The Audie Awards are annually bestowed annually in the USA for outstanding audiobooks. The Audies have been granted by the Audio Publishers Association, a not-for-profit trade organization, since 1996. The nominees are announced each year in January, and the winners are announced at a gala banquet...
winning narrator of audiobooks.
Life and career
He was born in Newark, New JerseyNewark, New Jersey
Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
} to a Greek American
Greek American
Greek Americans are Americans of Greek descent also described as Hellenic descent. According to the 2007 U.S. Census Bureau estimation, there were 1,380,088 people of Greek ancestry in the United States, while the State Department mentions that around 3,000,000 Americans claim to be of Greek descent...
father and Jewish mother, and grew up in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey
Berkeley Heights, New Jersey
Berkeley Heights is a township in Union County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 13,183....
. A graduate of Hampshire College
Hampshire College
Hampshire College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1965 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges in the Pioneer Valley: Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and the University of Massachusetts...
in Amherst, Massachusetts
Amherst, Massachusetts
Amherst is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2010 census, the population was 37,819, making it the largest community in Hampshire County . The town is home to Amherst College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts...
, Boutsikaris toured the country with John Houseman
John Houseman
John Houseman was a Romanian-born British-American actor and film producer who became known for his highly publicized collaboration with director Orson Welles from their days in the Federal Theatre Project through to the production of Citizen Kane...
's The Acting Company
The Acting Company
The Acting Company is a theatre company associated with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1972 by John Houseman, then a professor of acting at the Juilliard School...
doing classical theatre. On Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
he became the first American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
to play Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
in Amadeus
Amadeus
Amadeus is a play by Peter Shaffer.It is based on the lives of the composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, highly fictionalized.Amadeus was first performed in 1979...
, and was directed by Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
in Filumena. He was married to actress Deborah Hedwall, who later co-starred with him in the Off-Broadway production of Sight Unseen
Sight Unseen (play)
Sight Unseen is a play by Donald Margulies. At its center is Jonathan Waxman, a Brooklyn Jew who has become a very wealthy critically acclaimed artist. Happily married, with a baby on the way, he travels to London for a retrospective of his work...
to great critical acclaim. They divorced in 2002.
He has received two Obie Award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
s: one in 1985 for Outstanding Performance in Nest of the Woodgrouse at the New York Shakespeare Festival
New York Shakespeare Festival
New York Shakespeare Festival is the previous name of the New York City theatrical producing organization now known as the Public Theater. The Festival produced shows at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, as part of its free Shakespeare in the Park series, at the Public Theatre near Astor Place...
, directed by Joseph Papp
Joseph Papp
Joseph Papp was an American theatrical producer and director. Papp established The Public Theater in what had been the Astor Library Building in downtown New York . "The Public," as it is known, has many small theatres within it...
; and one in 1992 for Outstanding Performance in Sight Unseen at the Manhattan Theatre Club
Manhattan Theatre Club
Manhattan Theatre Club is a theater company located in New York City. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow and Executive Producer Barry Grove, Manhattan Theatre Club has grown since its founding in 1970 from an Off-Off Broadway showcase into one of the country’s most acclaimed...
. He also received a Drama Desk Award
Drama Desk Award
The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...
nomination for Best Actor for Sight Unseen, as well as a Cable ACE nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Chasing the Dragon in 1995. He was nominated for a People's Choice Award as best Newcomer.
His film credits include leading roles in *batteries not included
*batteries not included
*batteries not included is a 1987 family-science fiction film directed by Matthew Robbins about small extraterrestrial living machines that save an apartment block under threat from property development....
, The Dream Team
The Dream Team (film)
The Dream Team is a 1989 comedy film directed by Howard Zieff and produced by Christopher W. Knight for Imagine Entertainment and Universal Pictures. It stars Michael Keaton, Christopher Lloyd, Peter Boyle and Stephen Furst as mental-hospital inpatients who are left unsupervised in New York City...
, Crocodile Dundee 2, Boys on the Side
Boys on the Side
Boys on the Side is a 1995 comedy-drama film directed by Herbert Ross . It stars Whoopi Goldberg, Drew Barrymore and Mary-Louise Parker as three friends on a cross-country road trip...
and In Dreams
In Dreams (film)
In Dreams is a 1999 psychological thriller film directed by Neil Jordan. It stars Annette Bening as a New England illustrator who begins experiencing visions of a missing child who turns out to be her own daughter; through her dreams, she begins having psychic connections to a serial killer ...
, among many others. His most recent indie films include Cherry Crush, The Education of Charlie Banks, and Calling it Quits for which he received the Best Actor Award at the Staten Island Film Festival and the Long island Film Festival. He is Paul Wolfowitz in Oliver Stone's "W".
On television he had the lead in the series Stat, The Jackie Thomas Show
The Jackie Thomas Show
The Jackie Thomas Show is an American sitcom that aired on the ABC network from December 1992 to March 1993. The series received widespread attention due to its creators Roseanne Arnold, then starring in the fifth season of her top-rated comedy Roseanne, and her husband and Roseanne co-producer Tom...
, and Misery Loves Company
Misery Loves Company
Misery Loves Co. was a Swedish industrial metal duo of the 1990s and early 2000s. The band combined the hostility of thrash metal riffs with electronic samples usually associated with industrial music...
. He has also had recurring roles on Sidney Lumet
Sidney Lumet
Sidney Lumet was an American director, producer and screenwriter with over 50 films to his credit. He was nominated for the Academy Award as Best Director for 12 Angry Men , Dog Day Afternoon , Network and The Verdict...
's 100 Centre Street
100 Centre Street
100 Centre Street is an American legal drama created by Sidney Lumet and starring Alan Arkin.-Premise:The show takes its name for the street address of the criminal division of the New York Supreme Court for New York County. The show aired in the United States on the A&E Network cable television...
, Nurse
Nurse (1981 TV series)
Nurse is an American medical drama that aired on CBS from April 2, 1981 to May 1982. Series star Michael Learned won an Emmy in 1982 for her role on the show.-Synopsis:...
, Trinity
Trinity (TV series)
Trinity is a British drama series which was broadcast on ITV2 from September to November 2009. The series is set in the fictional "Trinity College" of "Bridgeford University", and stars Charles Dance, Claire Skinner, Antonia Bernath, Christian Cooke, Reggie Yates and Isabella Calthorpe.-Plot...
, ER
ER (TV series)
ER is an American medical drama television series created by novelist Michael Crichton that aired on NBC from September 19, 1994 to April 2, 2009. It was produced by Constant c Productions and Amblin Entertainment, in association with Warner Bros. Television...
, Law & Order
Law & Order
Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...
and, most recently, on Showtime's 'Shameless.
He has starred in over 20 TV Movies, including Chasing the Dragon
Chasing the dragon
"Chasing the dragon" refers to inhaling the vapor from heated morphine, heroin, oxycodone or opium that has been placed on a piece of foil...
(with Markie Post), And Then There Was One, (with Amy Madigan) Three Faces of Karen, (with Gail O'Grady) Survival on the Mountain, Beyond Betrayal, and in as Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
in the miniseries Love and Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story (with Patsy Kensit).
He has been seen on Broadway in Bent
Bent (play)
Bent is a 1979 play by Martin Sherman. It revolves around the persecution of gays in Nazi Germany, and takes place during and after the Night of the Long Knives....
, Filumena (directed by Sir Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
), and Amadeus
Amadeus
Amadeus is a play by Peter Shaffer.It is based on the lives of the composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, highly fictionalized.Amadeus was first performed in 1979...
(as the first American to play Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
) with Frank Langella
Frank Langella
-Early life:Langella, an Italian American, was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of Angelina and Frank A. Langella Sr., a business executive who was the president of the Bayonne Barrel and Drum Company. Langella attended Washington Elementary School and Bayonne High School in Bayonne...
. He was seen in the Delacorte Theatre's production of Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar (play)
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, also known simply as Julius Caesar, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1599. It portrays the 44 BC conspiracy against...
as Cassius
Gaius Cassius Longinus
Gaius Cassius Longinus was a Roman senator, a leading instigator of the plot to kill Julius Caesar, and the brother in-law of Marcus Junius Brutus.-Early life:...
. He was in the original New York productions of The Boys Next Door
The Boys Next Door (play)
The Boys Next Door is a play, written by Tom Griffin. It deals with four mentally disabled men who live in a group home. It takes place over roughly a two month period of time and consists of brief vignettes about their lives...
, A Picasso, and the revival of That Championship Season
That Championship Season
That Championship Season is a 1972 play by Jason Miller. It was the recipient of the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.-Plot synopsis:Characters* The Coach* George Sitkowski* Phil Romano* James Daley* Tom Daley...
.
Off-Broadway he is probably best known for playing Jonathan Waxman in the original production of Sight Unseen at the Manhattan Theatre Club
Manhattan Theatre Club
Manhattan Theatre Club is a theater company located in New York City. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow and Executive Producer Barry Grove, Manhattan Theatre Club has grown since its founding in 1970 from an Off-Off Broadway showcase into one of the country’s most acclaimed...
and later at the Orpheum Theatre. He received the Obie Award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
and a nomination for a Drama Desk Award
Drama Desk Award
The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...
for this performance. At the Geffen Theatre in Los Angeles he appeared in the premiere of David Mamet
David Mamet
David Alan Mamet is an American playwright, essayist, screenwriter and film director.Best known as a playwright, Mamet won a Pulitzer Prize and received a Tony nomination for Glengarry Glen Ross . He also received a Tony nomination for Speed-the-Plow . As a screenwriter, he received Oscar...
's The Old Neighborhood and in 2007 Jane Anderson
Jane Anderson
Jane Anderson is an American actress-turned-award-winning playwright, screenwriter and director. She has written and directed one feature film, The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio and wrote the script for the Nicolas Cage film It Could Happen to You.- Career :Prior to film directing, Anderson...
's The Quality of Life with Laurie Metcalf and Jo Beth Williams. For that performance he received the Backstage West Garland Award for Best Actor and was nominated for Best Actor by the L.A. Critics Drama Circle and by the LA Alliance Ovation Awards.
In 2009 he was in the Broadway revivals of Brighton Beach Memoirs
Brighton Beach Memoirs
Brighton Beach Memoirs is a semi-autobiographical play by Neil Simon, the first chapter in what is known as his Eugene trilogy. It precedes Biloxi Blues and Broadway Bound.-Characters:*Eugene Morris Jerome, almost 15...
and Broadway Bound
Broadway Bound
Broadway Bound is a semi-autobiographical play by Neil Simon. It is the last chapter in his Eugene trilogy, following Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues....
. The First, BRIGHTON BEACH, opened to wide critical acclaim and then closed one week later. Much has been written regarding the demise, but all fingers have pointed to mishandling by the producers. BROADWAY BOUND never opened.
He continued his association with Laurie Metcalf appearing with her in THE OTHER PLACE Off-Broadway.
He can be heard in over 100 audiobooks and has received five Audie Awards
Audie Awards
The Audie Awards are annually bestowed annually in the USA for outstanding audiobooks. The Audies have been granted by the Audio Publishers Association, a not-for-profit trade organization, since 1996. The nominees are announced each year in January, and the winners are announced at a gala banquet...
and two Best Voices of the Year Awards from AudioFile Magazine
External links
- http://www.dennisboutsikaris.com