David Bedella

David Bedella is an American actor born on September 25, 1962, in Gary, Indiana. He graduated from Merrillville High School in Merrillville, Indiana, in 1980 and has maintained a career spanning Broadway, the West End, national tours, television, and voice acting. He has received three Laurence Olivier Awards over the course of his career.

Bedella's professional stage work began with Showboat '81 at Opryland USA, after which he spent eight years performing in Chicago theatre from 1982 to 1990. In 1985, his performance in A Chorus Line earned him the Joseph Jefferson Award for Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical, his first professional acting honor. He subsequently appeared in national tours of Dreamgirls, Jesus Christ Superstar, and 42nd Street before relocating to New York City in the autumn of 1990. His New York-area work in the early 1990s included an engagement at the Goodspeed Opera House in 1991 and a tour of La Cage aux Folles. From 1992 to 1995, he portrayed Caiaphas in the 20th anniversary national tour of Jesus Christ Superstar. In 1995, he joined the original Broadway company of Smokey Joe's Cafe, a production he remained with intermittently for five years. He then toured the United States in Almost Like Being in Love before eventually departing for London in 2001. His Broadway appearances span 1992 to 2022 and include Jesus Christ Superstar and the play Julie.

Bedella's partner, Pressley Sutherland, was offered a position as a vicar in London in 2001, and persuaded Bedella to accompany him by pointing to the professional opportunities available in the West End. The two have remained based in London since. In 2002, Bedella took on what became his most prominent role, playing Jonathan Wierus in the first act and Satan in the second act of Jerry Springer: The Opera at the National Theatre. The performance earned him the 2004 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical. Around the same time, he appeared in a recurring role as plastic surgeon Dr. Carlos Fashola in the British medical drama Holby City. He subsequently took on the title role in Hedwig and the Angry Inch and then spent sixteen months, from 2006 to 2007, playing Frank-N-Furter in the UK tour of Richard O'Brien's The Rocky Horror Show. During this period he also appeared in minor film roles, including parts in Batman Begins and Alexander.

In May 2008, Bedella played Alexander Molokov in a concert staging of Chess at the Royal Albert Hall and performed in the West End gala of Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens at the Soho Revue Bar. He reprised Frank-N-Furter in a second UK tour of The Rocky Horror Show from 2009 to 2010. In October 2011, he appeared in a concert of the new musical Soho Cinders at the Sondheim Theatre in London, and from 2011 to 2012 he made his pantomime debut as Blackheart in Robinson Crusoe and the Caribbean Pirates at the New Theatre in Cardiff. In 2012, he played Arnold in Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London, and that same year replaced Matt Wilkinson as the voice of Victor in the British dub of the Thomas and Friends film Blue Mountain Mystery. His voice work on Thomas and Friends, which began in 2009, has included characters such as Carlos, Victor, the Mayor of Sodor, and a Cuban man across both British and American dubs. In 2015, he additionally replaced Keith Wickham as the Mayor of Sodor in the British dub.

In 2013, Bedella appeared in the British drama series By Any Means, and in 2014 he portrayed popstar Frankie Parsons in the episode "Last Gasp" of the dark comedy series Inside No. 9. That same year he appeared alongside Bradley Walsh in Peter Pan at the Milton Keynes Theatre and played the title role in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street at the Twickenham Theatre. In January 2015, it was confirmed he would join the cast of Mel Brooks' The Producers as Roger De Bris, and he once again reprised Frank-N-Furter in a further production of The Rocky Horror Show alongside the show's writer Richard O'Brien. Also in 2015, his live chat show David Bedella and Friends, which had begun at the Alley Cat venue and moved to the St. James Theatre in London, received the London Cabaret Society's Best Long Running Cabaret Award.

From 2015 to 2017, Bedella starred as Kevin Rosario in the Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights at the Kings Cross Theatre in London. The role brought him a WhatsOnStage Award and his second Laurence Olivier Award, this time for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical. In 2017, he recorded two songs for the album Wit and Whimsy: Songs by Alexander S. Bermange, which reached number one on the iTunes comedy album chart. The following year he returned to Chicago to appear in the American premiere of Nell Gwynn at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. In 2019, Bedella originated the role of Lance in the musical and Juliet, which made its world debut at the Manchester Opera House before transferring to the Shaftesbury Theatre in London's West End. His performance earned him the 2020 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical, his second win in that category and his third Olivier overall. He remained with the production until March 26, 2022.

In 2023, Bedella reprised Frank-N-Furter in the Adelaide, Melbourne, and Gold Coast legs of the Australian 50th Anniversary Tour of The Rocky Horror Show. In March 2024, he returned to Broadway in and Juliet, reprising his role as Lance. Bedella has also partnered with John Linehan in pantomime productions at the Belfast Grand Opera House in Northern Ireland, and has been in a relationship with Pressley Sutherland since 1997.