Andy Mientus

Andy Mientus, born Andrew Michael Mientus on November 10, 1986, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is an American actor whose career spans Broadway, television, and published fiction. Of Polish, Italian, and Irish descent, he is the son of Jean Marie (née Gleeson) and Robert J. Mientus.

Mientus first encountered the musical Spring Awakening as a fan, attending a production at the Atlantic Theatre Company before his professional career began. He subsequently created a Facebook group for fellow enthusiasts, which grew beyond his immediate circle as strangers joined the discussion. A producer from Spring Awakening took notice, asked Mientus to convert the group into the show's official Facebook page, and later recommended him for an audition with the touring company. He left the University of Michigan after his junior year to join the first national touring company, playing Hanschen, and did not return to complete his degree. He also appeared in the 2010–11 international tour of the production. His connection to Spring Awakening continued when he reprised the role of Hänschen in the Deaf West revival, directed by his then-fiancé Michael Arden, which transferred to Broadway and closed on January 24, 2016.

Mientus made his Broadway debut in the 2014 revival of Les Misérables as Marius Pontmercy, a run that concluded in early 2015 when he was succeeded by Chris McCarrell. His Broadway credits also include Wicked and Maybe Happy Ending, with his activity on Broadway spanning from 2008 to 2024. In February 2015, he was cast as journalist Brett Craig in a one-night-only concert presentation of Parade at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. Following his Les Misérables run, he relocated to Los Angeles, where he appeared in Bent at the Mark Taper Forum. In April and May 2018, he took on the title role in The Who's Tommy at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, noting in interviews that the classic rock score was music he had grown up with rather than traditional musical theater material. In 2012, he appeared in the Off-Broadway revival of Carrie: The Musical.

On television, Mientus joined the cast of the NBC musical drama Smash in 2013 as series regular Kyle Bishop in its second season. After the show's cancellation, he reunited with Smash co-stars Jeremy Jordan and Krysta Rodriguez for three performances of Hit List, a real-world staging of the fictional rock musical from the series, held December 8–9 at 54 Below. In 2014, he appeared in several episodes of the ABC Family series Chasing Life as Jackson. That same year, he was cast in a recurring role on the CW series The Flash as Hartley Rathaway, known as the Pied Piper — a role he had pursued after originally auditioning for the lead role of Barry Allen. Mientus had previously auditioned for the lead role of Barry Allen before being cast as Rathaway. In 2017, he joined the cast of Gone, a 12-episode procedural drama produced for NBCUniversal International Studios, Germany's RTL, and France's TF1, playing James Finley opposite Chris Noth, Danny Pino, and Leven Rambin. The series was based on Chelsea Cain's novel One Kick. In 2021, he was cast in Grendel, an eight-episode Netflix series adapted from Matt Wagner's Dark Horse comic books, in the role of Larry Stohler.

Beyond performing, Mientus has worked as a writer in multiple formats. He collaborated with Brooklyn-based band Teen Commandments — comprising Van Hughes, Nick LaGrasta, and Brett Moses — on the musical Burn All Night. Songs from the show were first performed at Feinstein's/54 Below in August 2016, and the official premiere, directed by Jenny Koons and choreographed by Sam Pinkleton, took place on August 18, 2017, at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In March 2018, Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams, announced his middle-grade fiction series The Backstagers, based on the comic series of the same name. The first installment, The Backstagers and the Ghost Light, was published on September 25, 2018, followed by The Backstagers and the Theater of the Ancients in March 2019 and The Backstagers and the Final Blackout in September 2019. His queer young-adult paranormal novel Fraternity was published by Amulet Books in September 2022.

Mientus lives with a rare neurological condition called HNPP, or Hereditary Neuropathy with Pressure Palsies. The condition first became apparent during a freshman ballet class at the University of Michigan, when his foot went numb and he withdrew from the class for the remainder of the year. He was subsequently placed in a stage tech class, where he met actor Darren Criss. Mientus is openly bisexual and married actor and director Michael Arden on August 18, 2016, at Babington House in Somerset, England. The two first met on October 26, 2006, at the opening night party of the Broadway production The Times They Are-a-Changin', in which Arden performed, and have been together since November 14, 2010. Both Mientus and Arden independently planned proposals to each other on the same day, June 23, 2014, without the other's knowledge.