Joe Mantello
Encyclopedia
Joseph Mantello is an American actor and director best known for his work on Broadway productions of Wicked
, Take Me Out and Assassins
, as well as earlier in his career being one of the original Broadway cast of Angels in America
. Mantello directed The Ritz
, his sixth production with playwright Terrence McNally
, in 2007.
and studied at the North Carolina School of the Arts
and started the Edge Theater in New York City
with actress Mary-Louise Parker
and writer Peter Hedges
. He is a member of the Naked Angels
theater company and an associate artist at the Roundabout Theatre Company
.
Mantello began his theatrical career as an actor in Keith Curran's Walking the Dead and Paula Vogel
's The Baltimore Waltz
. On the transition from acting to directing, Mantello said, "I think I've become a better actor since I started directing, although some people might disagree. Since I've been removed from the process I see things that actors fall into. Now there's a part of me that's removed from the process and can stand back."
Mantello directs a variety of theatre works, as the New York Times noted: "Very few American directors -- Jack O'Brien (director)
and Mike Nichols
come to mind -- successfully jump genres and styles the way Mr. Mantello does, moving from a two-hander like Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune to the huge canvas of a mainstream musical comedy like Wicked, from downtown stand-up (The Santaland Diaries) to contemporary opera (Dead Man Walking
) to political performance art (The Vagina Monologues)."
A Roundabout Theatre Company
revival of Lips Together, Teeth Apart
was scheduled to open at the American Airlines Theatre
in April 2010, when one of the stars, Megan Mullally
, suddenly quit. The production was postponed indefinitely due to her departure. According to The New York Times, "Mr. Mantello, who is known in the theater industry for having a temper, reacted to Ms. Mullally in private on a couple of occasions in a manner that she found to be brusque or unsympathetic."
Mantello returned to acting with the role of Ned Weeks in the Broadway limited engagement revival of The Normal Heart
in April 2011, for which he was nominated for the Tony Award
as Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play. Mantello had previously been nominated for the Tony Award for his role as Louis in Angels in America
.
Nominations
Wicked (musical)
Wicked is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman. It is based on the Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West , a parallel novel of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and L. Frank Baum's classic story The Wonderful Wizard...
, Take Me Out and Assassins
Assassins (musical)
Assassins is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by John Weidman, based on an idea by Charles Gilbert, Jr. It uses the premise of a murderous carnival game to produce a revue-style portrayal of men and women who attempted to assassinate Presidents of the United States...
, as well as earlier in his career being one of the original Broadway cast of Angels in America
Angels in America
Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is the 1993 Pulitzer Prize winning play in two parts by American playwright Tony Kushner. It has been made into both a television miniseries and an opera by Peter Eötvös.-Characters:...
. Mantello directed The Ritz
The Ritz (play)
The Ritz is a play by Terrence McNally. Actress Rita Moreno won a Tony Award for her performance as Googie Gomez in the 1975 Broadway production, which she and many others of the original cast reprised in a 1976 film version directed by Richard Lester....
, his sixth production with playwright Terrence McNally
Terrence McNally
Terrence McNally is an American playwright who has received four Tony Awards, an Emmy, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Hull-Warriner Award, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been a member of the Council of the...
, in 2007.
Biography
Mantello was born in Rockford, IllinoisRockford, Illinois
Rockford is a mid-sized city located on both banks of the Rock River in far northern Illinois. Often referred to as "The Forest City", Rockford is the county seat of Winnebago County, Illinois, USA. As reported in the 2010 U.S. census, the city was home to 152,871 people, the third most populated...
and studied at the North Carolina School of the Arts
North Carolina School of the Arts
The University of North Carolina School of the Arts , formerly the North Carolina School of the Arts, is a public coeducational arts conservatory in Winston-Salem, North Carolina that grants high school, undergraduate and graduate degrees. It is one of the seventeen constituent campuses of the...
and started the Edge Theater in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
with actress Mary-Louise Parker
Mary-Louise Parker
Mary-Louise Parker is an American actress, known for her current lead role on Showtime's television series Weeds portraying Nancy Botwin, for which she has received several nominations and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in 2006...
and writer Peter Hedges
Peter Hedges
Peter Hedges is an American novelist, screenwriter, and film director.Hedges grew up in West Des Moines, Iowa, and attended Valley High School, where he was involved in the theater department, including the improv group and the mime troupe, "The Bakers Dozen". He later went to the North Carolina...
. He is a member of the Naked Angels
Naked Angels (theater company)
Naked Angels is an American theater company founded in 1986 and based in New York City. It was named after John Tytell’s book about the Beat Generation, Naked Angels...
theater company and an associate artist at the Roundabout Theatre Company
Roundabout Theatre Company
The Roundabout Theatre Company is a leading non-profit theatre company based in New York City.-History:The company was founded in 1965 by Gene Feist and Elizabeth Owens and now operates five theatres, all in Manhattan: the American Airlines Theatre ; Studio 54 ; the Stephen Sondheim Theatre The...
.
Mantello began his theatrical career as an actor in Keith Curran's Walking the Dead and Paula Vogel
Paula Vogel
Paula Vogel is an American playwright and university professor. She received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play, How I Learned to Drive.-Early years:...
's The Baltimore Waltz
The Baltimore Waltz
The Baltimore Waltz is a play by Paula Vogel.Essentially a series of comic vignettes underlined by tragedy, the farce traces the European odyssey of sister and brother Anna and Carl, in search of hedonistic pleasure and a cure for her terminal illness, the fictitious ATD she contracted by using...
. On the transition from acting to directing, Mantello said, "I think I've become a better actor since I started directing, although some people might disagree. Since I've been removed from the process I see things that actors fall into. Now there's a part of me that's removed from the process and can stand back."
Mantello directs a variety of theatre works, as the New York Times noted: "Very few American directors -- Jack O'Brien (director)
Jack O'Brien (director)
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....
and Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols is a German-born American television, stage and film director, writer, producer and comedian. He began his career in the 1950s as one half of the comedy duo Nichols and May, along with Elaine May. In 1968 he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film The Graduate...
come to mind -- successfully jump genres and styles the way Mr. Mantello does, moving from a two-hander like Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune to the huge canvas of a mainstream musical comedy like Wicked, from downtown stand-up (The Santaland Diaries) to contemporary opera (Dead Man Walking
Dead Man Walking (opera)
Dead Man Walking is the first opera by Jake Heggie, with a libretto by Terrence McNally; it premiered on October 7, 2000 at the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco Opera.-Roles:...
) to political performance art (The Vagina Monologues)."
A Roundabout Theatre Company
Roundabout Theatre Company
The Roundabout Theatre Company is a leading non-profit theatre company based in New York City.-History:The company was founded in 1965 by Gene Feist and Elizabeth Owens and now operates five theatres, all in Manhattan: the American Airlines Theatre ; Studio 54 ; the Stephen Sondheim Theatre The...
revival of Lips Together, Teeth Apart
Lips Together, Teeth Apart
Lips Together, Teeth Apart is a 1991 play by American playwright Terrence McNally.-Plot:A gay community in Fire Island provides an unlikely setting for two straight couples spending the Fourth of July weekend in a house inherited by Sally from her brother who died of AIDS. Through monologues...
was scheduled to open at the American Airlines Theatre
American Airlines Theatre
The American Airlines Theatre is a Broadway theatre, located at 227 West 42nd Street, New York City.-Design:Originally named the Selwyn Theatre, it was constructed by the Selwyn brothers, Edgar and Archie, in 1918. It was one of three theatres they built and controlled on 42nd Street, along with...
in April 2010, when one of the stars, Megan Mullally
Megan Mullally
Megan Mullally is an American actress and singer.After working in the theatre in Chicago, Mullally moved to Los Angeles in 1985 and began to appear in supporting roles in film and television productions. She made her Broadway debut in Grease in 1994 and she has since appeared in several Broadway...
, suddenly quit. The production was postponed indefinitely due to her departure. According to The New York Times, "Mr. Mantello, who is known in the theater industry for having a temper, reacted to Ms. Mullally in private on a couple of occasions in a manner that she found to be brusque or unsympathetic."
Mantello returned to acting with the role of Ned Weeks in the Broadway limited engagement revival of The Normal Heart
The Normal Heart
The Normal Heart is a largely autobiographical play by Larry Kramer. It focuses on the rise of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City between 1981 and 1984, as seen through the eyes of writer/activist Ned Weeks, the gay Jewish-American founder of a prominent HIV advocacy group...
in April 2011, for which he was nominated for the Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
as Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play. Mantello had previously been nominated for the Tony Award for his role as Louis in Angels in America
Angels in America
Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is the 1993 Pulitzer Prize winning play in two parts by American playwright Tony Kushner. It has been made into both a television miniseries and an opera by Peter Eötvös.-Characters:...
.
Awards and nominations
Awards- 1993 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play - Angels in America: Millennium Approaches
- 2003 Tony Award Best Direction of a Play - Take Me Out
- 2004 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Director of a Musical - Wicked
- 2004 Tony Award Best Direction of a Musical - Assassins
Nominations
- 1993 Tony Award Best Featured Actor in a Play - Angels in America: Millennium Approaches
- 1995 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Director of a Play - Love! Valour! Compassion!
- 1995 Tony Award Best Direction of a Play - Love! Valour! Compassion!
- 1998 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Direction of a Play - Mizlansky/Zilinsky or 'Schmucks
- 2003 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Director of a Musical - A Man of No Importance
- 2003 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Director of a Play - Take Me Out
- 2004 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Director of a Musical - Assassins
- 2005 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Director of a Play - Glengarry Glen Ross
- 2005 Tony Award Best Direction of a Play - Glengarry Glen Ross
- 2011 Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Play - The Normal Heart
Stage productions
- The Pride at MCC TheaterMCC TheaterMCC Theater is an Off-Broadway theater company located in New York City, founded in 1986 by artistic directors Robert LuPone and Bernard Telsey along with six graduates of the New York University drama department, including Jana Herzen...
- 9 to 5 (Musical)9 to 5 (musical)9 to 5: The Musical is a stage musical with music and lyrics by Dolly Parton and a book by Patricia Resnick, based on the 1980 movie Nine to Five...
- Asking and Telling
- AssassinsAssassins (musical)Assassins is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by John Weidman, based on an idea by Charles Gilbert, Jr. It uses the premise of a murderous carnival game to produce a revue-style portrayal of men and women who attempted to assassinate Presidents of the United States...
(Tony award winner, Director) - The Baltimore Waltz
- bash
- Blackbird
- Blue Window
- Corpus ChristiCorpus Christi (play)Corpus Christi is a passion play by Terrence McNally dramatizing the story of Jesus and the Apostles. Written in 1997 and first staged in New York in 1998, it depicts Jesus and the Apostles as gay men living in modern-day Texas. It utilizes modern devices like television with anachronisms like...
- Dead Man WalkingDead Man Walking (opera)Dead Man Walking is the first opera by Jake Heggie, with a libretto by Terrence McNally; it premiered on October 7, 2000 at the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco Opera.-Roles:...
(Terrence McNally and Jake Heggie) for the San Francisco OperaSan Francisco OperaSan Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America... - Design for LivingDesign for LivingDesign for Living is a comedy play written by Noël Coward in 1932. It concerns a trio of artistic characters, Gilda, Otto and Leo, and their complicated three-way relationship. Originally written to star Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt and Coward, it was premiered on Broadway, partly because its risqué...
- Fat Men in Skirts
- Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de LuneFrankie and Johnny in the Clair de LuneFrankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune is a two-character play by Terrence McNally.It focuses on two lonely, middle-aged people whose first date ends with them tumbling into bed. Johnny is certain he has found his soul mate in Frankie. She, on the other hand, is far more cautious and disinclined...
- Glengarry Glen RossGlengarry Glen RossGlengarry Glen Ross is a 1984 play written by David Mamet. The play shows parts of two days in the lives of four desperate Chicago real estate agents who are prepared to engage in any number of unethical, illegal acts—from lies and flattery to bribery, threats, intimidation and burglary—to sell...
(Tony nomination, Director) - God's Heart
- Imagining Brad (produced at the Circle Repertory CompanyCircle Repertory CompanyThe Circle Repertory Company, originally named the Circle Theater Company, was a theatre company in New York City that ran from 1969 to 1996. It was founded on July 14, 1969, in Manhattan, in a second floor loft at Broadway and 83rd Street by director Marshall W...
) - Lillian
- Love! Valour! Compassion!Love! Valour! Compassion!Love! Valour! Compassion! is a play by Terrence McNally. Its off-Broadway premiere took place at the Manhattan Theatre Club on October 11, 1994, in a staging by Joe Mantello that ran for 72 performances...
(Tony award nomination, Director)
- A Man of No Importance
- Mario Cantone: Laugh Whore
- The Mineola TwinsThe Mineola TwinsThe Mineola Twins is a play by Paula Vogel.The play opened on February 18, 1999 and closed on May 30, 1999 at the Laura Pels Theatre in a Roundabout Theatre production. Directed by Joe Mantello, the cast included Swoosie Kurtz and Mo Gaffney...
- Mizlansky/Zilinsky or Schmucks
- NovemberNovember (Mamet play)November is a 2007 play written by American playwright David Mamet.November premiered on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on January 17, 2008...
- The Odd CoupleThe Odd CoupleThe Odd Couple is a 1965 Broadway play by Neil Simon, followed by a successful film and television series, as well as other derivative works and spin offs, many featuring one or more of the same actors. The plot concerns two mismatched roommates, one neat and uptight, the other more easygoing and...
- Proposals
- The Receptionist
- The Santaland Diaries (by David SedarisDavid SedarisDavid Sedaris is a Grammy Award-nominated American humorist, writer, comedian, bestselling author, and radio contributor....
) - Snakebit
- Take Me Out (New York - Tony award, San Diego)
- Three Days of RainThree Days of RainThree Days of Rain is a play by Richard Greenberg that was commissioned and produced by South Coast Repertory in 1997. The title comes from a line from W. S. Merwin's poem, "For the Anniversary of My Death"...
- Three Hotels
- The Vagina MonologuesThe Vagina MonologuesThe Vagina Monologues is an episodic play written by Eve Ensler which ran at the Off Broadway Westside Theatre after a limited run at AFRICA in 1996. Ensler originally starred in the production which was produced by David Stone, Nina Essman, Dan Markley, The Araca Group, Willa Shalit, Mike Skipper...
- WickedWicked (musical)Wicked is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman. It is based on the Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West , a parallel novel of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and L. Frank Baum's classic story The Wonderful Wizard...
(2004 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Director of a Musical)
Filmography
- Love! Valour! Compassion!Love! Valour! Compassion!Love! Valour! Compassion! is a play by Terrence McNally. Its off-Broadway premiere took place at the Manhattan Theatre Club on October 11, 1994, in a staging by Joe Mantello that ran for 72 performances...
(director) - Cookie (1989)
- Law & OrderLaw & OrderLaw & 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,...
- Sisters
External links
- Joe Mantello at the American Theatre WingAmerican Theatre WingThe American Theatre Wing is a New York City-based organization "dedicated to supporting excellence and education in theatre," according to its mission statement...
- 1992 BOMB Magazine interview with Joe Mantello by Nicole Burdette