Norm Lewis is an American actor and baritone

Baritone

Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...

 singer. He has appeared 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...

 as well as in regional theatre.

Life

Lewis was born in Tallahassee, Florida and grew up in Eatonville, Florida

Eatonville, Florida

Eatonville is a town in Orange County, Florida, six miles north of Orlando. It is part of the Orlando–Kissimmee metropolitan statistical area. The population was 2,432 at the 2000 census. As of 2006, the population recorded by the U.S...

. He worked at the Orlando Sentinel prior to his acting career.

Career

Lewis was featured as AGWE in the Gateway Playhouse

Gateway Playhouse

Gateway Playhouse is a summer theatre located on the eastern edge of Bellport, Long Island. The street address is 215 South Country Road. It's the oldest of three professional theatres on the island and nationally recognized as one of the top ten summer theatres in the nation. Gateway Playhouse...

 (Bellport, New York

Bellport, New York

Bellport is a village in Suffolk County, New York, United States. The population was 2,363 at the 2000 census. The village is named after the Bell family, early settlers of the area. The public education system in Bellport makes up the South Country Central School District consisting of six...

) production of Once On This Island

Once On This Island

Once on This Island is a one-act musical with a book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty. Based on the novel My Love, My Love by Rosa Guy, set in the French Antilles in the Caribbean Sea...

 in 1992.

Lewis made his Broadway debut in Miss Saigon

Miss Saigon

Miss Saigon is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby, Jr.. It is based on Giacomo Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly, and similarly tells the tragic tale of a doomed romance involving an Asian woman abandoned by her American lover...

 as "John" (replacement). He next appeared in The Who's Tommy

The Who's Tommy

The Who's Tommy is a rock musical by Pete Townshend and Des McAnuff based on The Who's 1969 double album rock opera Tommy, also by Pete Townshend, with additional material by John Entwistle, Keith Moon and Sonny Boy Williamson.-Productions:...

 (1993)
In 1997 he played Jake in Side Show

Side Show

Side Show is a musical about Daisy and Violet Hilton, conjoined twins who make a change from being a circus act to becoming famous stage performers in the 1930s. The show was written by Bill Russell and Henry Krieger . The show starred Alice Ripley as Violet and Emily Skinner as Daisy...

. Lewis was in Michel Legrand's short-lived musical Amour

Amour (musical)

Amour is a musical fantasy with an English book by Jeremy Sams, music by Michel Legrand, and lyrics by Didier Van Cauwelaert, who wrote the original French libretto....

 in 2002, which also feaured Melissa Errico

Melissa Errico

-Biography:Born in Manhattan, Errico moved to Manhasset on Long Island at an early age. Her parents, a sculptor and a physician/concert pianist, supported her early interest in ballet, and gymnastics, and Melissa competed nationally as a gymnast...

, Malcolm Gets

Malcolm Gets

Hugh Malcolm Gerard Gets is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Richard in the American television sitcom Caroline in the City. Gets is also a dancer, singer, composer, classically trained pianist, vocal director, and choreographer. He has a small part in the film adaptation of...

 and Lewis Cleale

Lewis Cleale

Lewis Cleale is an American theatre actor and singer. He is originally from Houlton, Maine.A graduate of the University of Miami's Frost School of Music and of the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre, Cleale's big break came when he was cast in a European tour of Oklahoma!, in which he was noticed by...

. He played the racketeer "Eddie Satin" in the New York City Center

New York City Center

New York City Center is a 2,750-seat Moorish Revival theater located at 131 West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues in Manhattan, New York City. It is one block south of Carnegie Hall...

 Encores!

Encores!

Encores! Great American Musicals in Concert is a program that has been presented by New York City Center since 1994. Encores! is dedicated to performing the full score of musicals that rarely are heard in New York City...

 staged concert of Golden Boy

Golden Boy

Golden Boy is a drama by Clifford Odets. The play was initially produced on Broadway by The Group Theatre in 1937. Odets' biggest hit was made into a 1939 film of the same name, starring William Holden in his breakthrough role, and also served as the basis for a 1964 musical.-Plot:It focuses on Joe...

 in March 2002. He played "Billy Flynn" in the Broadway revival of Chicago

Chicago (musical)

Chicago is a musical set in Prohibition-era Chicago. The music is by John Kander with lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal"...

 in February 2004 and March 2004. He performed in several benefit concerts, including Dreamgirls

Dreamgirls

Dreamgirls is a Broadway musical, with music by Henry Krieger and lyrics and book by Tom Eyen. Based upon the show business aspirations and successes of R&B acts such as The Supremes, The Shirelles, James Brown, Jackie Wilson, and others, the musical follows the story of a young female singing trio...

 (2001), Chess

Chess (musical)

Chess is a musical with music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, formerly of ABBA, and with lyrics by Tim Rice. The story involves a romantic triangle between two top players, an American and a Russian, in a world chess championship, and a woman who manages one and falls in love with the other;...

 (2003), and Hair

Hair (musical)

Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot. A product of the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, several of its songs became anthems of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement...

.

In 2005, Lewis starred in the Public Theater

Public Theater

The Public Theater is a New York City arts organization founded as The Shakespeare Workshop in 1954 by Joseph Papp, with the intention of showcasing the works of up-and-coming playwrights and performers. It is headquartered at 425 Lafayette Street in the former Astor Library in the East Village...

's "Shakespeare in the Park" revival of Two Gentlemen of Verona

Two Gentlemen of Verona (musical)

Two Gentlemen of Verona is a rock musical, with a book by John Guare and Mel Shapiro, lyrics by Guare and music by Galt MacDermot, based on the Shakespeare comedy of the same name....

. He played the role of Nathan in the Lincoln Center 2005 production of Dessa Rose

Dessa Rose (musical)

Dessa Rose is a musical based on the book by Sherley Anne Williams with book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty. It tells the story of a young black woman and a young white woman and their journey to acceptance in 1847 in the ante-bellum South, as they tell their story to their...

.

He played Javert

Javert

Javert is a fictional character from the novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. He is a prison guard, and later policeman, who devotes his life to the law. He is always referred to just simply as "Javert" or "Inspector Javert" by the narrator and other characters throughout the novel; his first name...

 in the 2006 revival of Les Misérables

Les Misérables (musical)

Les Misérables , colloquially known as Les Mis or Les Miz , is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg, based on the novel of the same name by Victor Hugo....

 on Broadway. He originated the role of King Triton in the Broadway production of The Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid (musical)

The Little Mermaid is a stage musical produced by Disney Theatrical, based on the animated 1989 Disney film of the same name and the classic story of The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen...

 in 2007. Lewis is also featured on the Original Broadway Cast Recording of The Little Mermaid as King Triton.

In regional theatre, he played the title role in Sweeney Todd, the musical by Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...

 and Hugh Wheeler

Hugh Wheeler

Hugh Callingham Wheeler was an English-born playwright, screenwriter, librettist, poet, and translator. He resided in the United States from 1934 until his death and became a naturalized citizen in 1942. He had attended London University.Under the noms de plume Patrick Quentin, Q...

, at the Casa Mañana Theatre, Fort Worth, Texas beginning November 10, 2009. He had previously played this role at the Signature Theatre in 1999.

Lewis was featured in the musical revue Sondheim on Sondheim

Sondheim on Sondheim

Sondheim on Sondheim is a musical revue consisting of music and lyrics written by Stephen Sondheim for his many shows. It is conceived and directed by James Lapine. The revue had a limited run on Broadway in 2010.-Background:...

, which premiered in the Roundabout Theatre's Studio 54

Studio 54

Studio 54 was a highly popular discotheque from 1977 until 1991, located at 254 West 54th Street in Manhattan, New York, USA. It was originally the Gallo Opera House, opening in 1927, after which it changed names several times, eventually becoming a CBS radio and television studio. In 1977 it...

 in 2010. The production, conceived and directed by James Lapine

James Lapine

James Lapine is an American stage director and librettist. He has won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical three times, for Into the Woods, Falsettos, and Passion. He has frequently collaborated with Stephen Sondheim and William Finn.-Biography:Lapine was born in Mansfield, Ohio and graduated...

, also featured Barbara Cook

Barbara Cook

Barbara Cook is an American singer and actress who first came to prominence in the 1950s after starring in the original Broadway musicals Candide and The Music Man among others, winning a Tony Award for the latter...

 and Vanessa L. Williams

Vanessa L. Williams

Vanessa Lynn Williams is an American pop-R&B recording artist, producer, dancer, model, actress and showgirl. In 1983, she became the first woman of African-American descent to be crowned Miss America, but a scandal generated by her having posed for nude photographs published in Penthouse magazine...

. His rendition of "Being Alive" was one of the evening's outstanding highlights. He is currently reprising the role of Javert in the West End production of Les Misérables. He will be playing the role up to January 29. He also played the role in the 25th anniversary concert of the show at London's O2 arena.

Lewis is expected to appear in a revised version of Porgy and Bess

Porgy and Bess

Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...

, as "Porgy", first at the Loeb Drama Center (Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...

) in August through September 2011 and then on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre

Richard Rodgers Theatre

The Richard Rodgers Theatre, is a Broadway theater in New York City, built by Irwin Chanin in 1925. When it was first opened, it was called Chanin's 46th Street Theatre. Chanin almost immediately leased it to the Shuberts, who bought the building outright in 1931 and renamed it the 46th Street...

 starting in previews on December 12, 2011. This American Repertory Theater production is being "re-imagined by Suzan-Lori Parks

Suzan-Lori Parks

Suzan-Lori Parks is an African American playwright and screenwriter. She received the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant in 2001, and the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play, Topdog/Underdog.-Early years:...

 and Diedre Murray

Diedre Murray

Diedre Murray is an American cellist and composer specializing in jazz, improvised music, opera, and contemporary classical music. She is also active as a producer, and curator...

 as a musical for contemporary audiences."

Lewis released his first solo album This is the Life in 2008 under the Seahorse Productions label. His other notable recordings include the 1998 cast recording of A New Brain

A New Brain

A New Brain is a musical with music and lyrics by William Finn and book by Finn and James Lapine.The musical was first produced Off-Broadway at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center, with previews beginning on May 14, 1998...

 as Roger Delli-Bovi, for Scott Alans 'Keys' and for the 2001 New York cast recording of Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens

Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens

Elegies For Angels, Punks and Raging Queens is a song cycle with music by Janet Hood and lyrics and additional text by Bill Russell. The work features songs and monologues inspired by the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology...

 in aid of the Momentum Aids Project.

External links