Dakin Matthews

Dakin Matthews, born Melvin Richard Matthews on November 7, 1940, in Oakland, California, is an American actor, playwright, theatre director, and theatrical scholar whose career spans stage, film, and television. He began his stage work in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area, performing at both the Marin and California Shakespeare Festivals before joining the acting ensemble of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, where Annette Bening was among his students. His early academic path had pointed toward the Roman Catholic priesthood, with studies in San Francisco and at the Gregorian University in Rome during the 1960s, but his interest in drama redirected him toward the Juilliard School, where he taught students including Kevin Kline and Patti LuPone. He also attended graduate school at New York University and holds the title of Emeritus Professor of English at California State University, East Bay in Hayward, California.

Matthews has served in leadership roles at several theater organizations, including as Artistic Director of the Berkeley Shakespeare Festival, the California Actors Theatre, the Andak Stage Company, and the California Actors Theatre. He co-founded the Antaeus Theatre Company in 1991 and is an Associate Artist of the Old Globe Theatre, as well as a founding member of both John Houseman's The Acting Company and Sam Mendes' Bridge Project. His scholarly work includes published books and articles on Shakespeare and translations of seventeenth-century Spanish theater. In 2011, his verse translation of The Capulets and The Montagues was performed at the Andak Stage Company and the International Siglo de Oro Festival, earning the L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Adaptation. He was also nominated for an Ovation Award for the book and lyrics of the original musical Liberty Inn, which he co-wrote with B. T. Ryback.

His dramaturgical work has been recognized with a Drama Desk Award Special Award in 2004 for his adaptation of Henry IV for the 2003 Broadway revival. He also served as dramaturg on the 2005 Broadway revival of Julius Caesar starring Denzel Washington and on the Lincoln Center production of Macbeth in 2013, directed by Jack O'Brien and starring Ethan Hawke. As a stage actor, Matthews has taken on a wide range of classical roles, among them King Lear, Bottom, and Falstaff. Notable non-Broadway stage credits include C. S. Lewis in South Coast Repertory's Shadowlands, Undershaft in Major Barbara and Tarleton in Misalliance for South Coast Repertory, Cardinal Wolsey in A Man for All Seasons with Frank Langella at the Roundabout, Leonato in Shakespeare Center L.A.'s Much Ado About Nothing opposite Helen Hunt, and Richard Russell in Robert Schenkkan's All the Way starring Bryan Cranston at A.R.T. in Cambridge in 2013. In the 2009 world tour of The Bridge Project, he appeared as Pishchick in The Cherry Orchard and Antigonus in The Winter's Tale, and during the 2011 summer season of The Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park, he performed as the Provost in Measure for Measure and Lafew in All's Well That Ends Well.

Matthews' Broadway career spans from 2001 to 2023. He played Senator Carlin in Gore Vidal's The Best Man and Mickey Goldmill in the musical Rocky the Musical in 2014. In 2015, he portrayed Winston Churchill opposite Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II in Peter Morgan's The Audience. He originated the role of Joe in the musical Waitress, which opened on Broadway in April 2016, and returned to the role for the 2021 restaging. Between 2018 and 2020, and again for a limited engagement in January 2022, he played Judge Taylor in To Kill a Mockingbird. He appeared in The Iceman Cometh during his Broadway tenure, and in 2023 took on the dual role of Merlyn and Pellinore in the fourth Broadway revival of Camelot.

On television, Matthews is recognized for recurring roles including Herb Kelcher in My Two Dads from 1987 to 1989, Hanlin Charleston in Gilmore Girls from 2000 to 2007, Joe Heffernan in The King of Queens from 1998 to 2007, and Reverend Sikes in Desperate Housewives from 2004 to 2012. He has made guest appearances on numerous series, among them Remington Steele, Dallas, Murder She Wrote, L.A. Law, Star Trek: Voyager, The West Wing, NYPD Blue, True Blood, House M.D., Blue Bloods, Two and a Half Men, and Carnivàle. In 2010, he joined the cast of General Hospital as Judge Peter Carroll. His film work includes more than 25 feature films, among them Nuts, Clean and Sober, Thirteen Days, True Grit in the role of Colonel Stonehill, Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, and Bridge of Spies, in which he portrayed Judge Byers.