Don Stephenson

Don Stephenson, born Donald Ragan Stephenson IV on September 10, 1964, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is an American actor and stage director active on Broadway from 1997 to 2023. His father, Don Ragan Stephenson Jr., worked as a TVA chemical engineer, and his mother, Diane Stephenson, was a medical technologist. Stephenson completed his secondary education at Hixson High School in Chattanooga and earned a degree from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in 1986. He is married to Emily Loesser, daughter of composer Frank Loesser; the two met while performing together in The Secret Garden and wed in 1991. They have four children and have shared the stage in multiple productions over the years.

Stephenson's Broadway career began in 1997 when he originated the role of Charles Clarke in Titanic. The following year he created the role of Mr. Peavy in Parade. Subsequent originating credits include Bingo Little in By Jeeves in 2001 and Renfield in Dracula, the Musical in 2004. In 2003 he starred as Leo Bloom in both the Broadway production and the first national tour of The Producers. Additional Broadway appearances include Private Lives in 2002, Rock of Ages in 2009, and A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder in 2013, in which he played the D'Ysquith Family. In 2021 it was announced that Stephenson would originate the role of Bill O'Wray in the Broadway production of Alice Childress's Trouble in Mind, a production nominated for the Tony Award and one in which his performance received individual critical attention. Beginning in March 2024, Stephenson starred as Doc Brown in the North American Tour of Back to the Future: The Musical, a role he held for approximately one year.

Off-Broadway, Stephenson originated the role of Fidele in Death Takes a Holiday in 2011 and played Vissi D'Amore Boy and Thurio in Two Gentlemen of Verona at the Delacorte Theater in 2005. He portrayed Sid Davis in Take Me Along at the Irish Repertory Theatre in 2008 and appeared as Zach in The Tavern at Equity Library Theatre in 2007, as well as Anatoly in Chess. Regional and concert credits include Tom Stoppard's Travesties at Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven in 2005, the 2014 Encores! staged concert of The Band Wagon as Hal, and the 2018 Encores! production of Me and My Girl. From May through June 2022, he starred as Coleman in Trading Places at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, a musical based on the original film, and received a Suzi Bass Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Performer for that performance. On television, Stephenson appeared as himself during his Producers run in the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode Mel's Offer, played David Jordan on the soap opera Another World, and made guest appearances on The Good Wife, 30 Rock, Ugly Betty, the Law and Order franchise, Glee, Happy!, Deception, The Americans, and Turn: Washington's Spies.

As a director, Stephenson staged a production of Titanic at The Muny in St. Louis in 2010 and subsequently developed a chamber version of the show using twenty actors, an abstract set, projections, and new orchestrations, incorporating previously cut material from the original Broadway production. That version opened at The Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, New York, in July 2012, earned eleven BroadwayWorld Award nominations including Best Director, and was remounted at Westchester Broadway Theatre in January 2014. He also directed a staged concert of Titanic at Lincoln Center in 2014. Among his other directing credits are The 39 Steps at Flat Rock Playhouse in 2010, The Great Unknown at the Theater at St. Clement's as part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2010, Noises Off at Pittsburgh Public Theater in 2014, Lend Me a Tenor at Paper Mill Playhouse in 2013, Deathtrap at Flat Rock Playhouse in 2013, The Other Place at the Alley Theatre in Houston in 2015, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike at Paper Mill Playhouse in 2015, Buyer and Cellar at TheaterWorks in Hartford in 2016, and I'll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers at TheaterWorks in 2015. For Goodspeed Musicals he directed Guys and Dolls at the Goodspeed Opera House in 2015, a new production of The Will Rogers Follies in 2018, and a reconceived version of the Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley musical The Roar of the Greasepaint — The Smell of the Crowd, which reduced the cast to four actors and set the story in a post-apocalyptic environment, earning Stephenson a BroadwayWorld Award nomination for Best Director. In the 2016–2017 season he directed both The Producers and A Comedy of Tenors at Paper Mill Playhouse. In 2017 he directed the Off-Broadway production of Attack of the Elvis Impersonators, with book, music, and lyrics by Lory Lazarus, which opened at The Lion Theatre at Theatre Row on June 15 and ran for 49 performances before closing on July 30. In 2018 he directed Broadway Classics in concert at Carnegie Hall, and in 2023 he directed the new musical The Jerusalem Syndrome at the York Theatre.