Jason Graae

Jason Graae (pronounced "grah" or "graw") is an American musical theater actor born on May 15, 1958, in Chicago, Illinois. His career spans Broadway, off-Broadway, opera, television, film, voice work, and cabaret. Among his honors are four Bistro Awards, two Ovation Awards, two New York Nightlife Awards, the Theatre Bay Area Award for Best Actor in a Musical, and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Joel Hirschhorn Award for Outstanding Achievement in Musical Theatre.

Though born in Chicago, Graae grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he attended Edison Preparatory School. There he played oboe, performed in plays, and sang in the chorus, including a seventh-grade appearance in George M!. During high school he served as principal oboist in the Tulsa Youth Symphony for four years. He enrolled at Southern Methodist University in Dallas with the intention of becoming a concert oboist, but dissatisfaction with his instructor led him to transfer to the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. When that same instructor relocated to Cincinnati as well, Graae took it as a signal to redirect his focus entirely toward musical theater. He graduated in 1980 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in musical theater from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Music ran throughout his family. His mother was a dancer in Broadway musicals who later moved to Europe after marrying his father; the couple fled Nazi persecution during World War II and eventually returned to the United States. His father, a scientist by profession, played cello in a symphony outside Chicago as an avocation, and his sister is a classical pianist. His father was among those who fled Denmark during the 1940 invasion, traveling to America on the same boat as Victor Borge, whom Graae has cited as his primary inspiration. When an early agent urged him to change his surname to "Grey," Graae declined, choosing instead to honor his Danish heritage. In 2007, his mother relocated from Tulsa to Los Angeles to live with Graae and his partner.

Graae made his off-Broadway debut in Godspell in 1980 alongside Liz Callaway, a collaboration that led to a friendship and performing partnership lasting nearly thirty years in cabaret. His Broadway debut came in Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?, and his Broadway credits across a career running from 1982 to 2009 include Falsettos, Stardust, Snoopy!!!, and the Rodgers and Hammerstein revue A Grand Night for Singing. A pivotal early career milestone was creating the role of Sparky in Forever Plaid, which opened off-Broadway in 1989 at Steve McGraw's alongside original cast members Stan Chandler, David Engel, and Guy Stroman. The production ran for more than four years and over 1,800 performances. The four original cast members shared a Bistro Award for the show. In 1993, Graae received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Musical for Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh. In 1997, he played Houdini in the United States premiere of Ragtime.

Graae's work extended well beyond Broadway. He appeared as Chad in a recurring role on the Showtime series Rude Awakening and as Dennis on HBO's Six Feet Under. His television guest appearances include Friends, Frasier, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Caroline in the City, Living Single, and Providence. Film credits include The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood! and Geppetto. His voice work includes serving as the voice of the Lucky Charms leprechaun and representing Western Union Moneygrams in advertising, performing a singing voice in the Disney film Home on the Range, and providing the English voice for the protagonist Barry in the 2011 French animated film Sunshine Barry and the Disco Worms, which also featured Jane Lynch and David Bateson. He released the commercial audio recording You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile: Jason Graae Sings Charles Strouse.

In 2000, Graae was cast in Forbidden Broadway Y2K LA!, an updated installment of the Forbidden Broadway franchise of musical theater parody revues. He had previously appeared in a related Hollywood parody spinoff, earning an Ovation Award nomination for Forbidden Hollywood, and won an Ovation Award for Forbidden Broadway Y2K LA!. He is included on the Forbidden Broadway: 20th Anniversary Edition cast album. In 2003, he received an Ovation Award nomination for Anything Goes. That same period saw him develop his one-man show Coup de Graae!, which he performed in New York, San Francisco, Hollywood, and other cities. The show, which incorporates songs and personal stories referencing the work of Rodgers and Hart, Jerry Herman, and the Bergmans, was named among Time Out New York's top ten cabaret acts of 2006 and earned Graae a New York Nightlife Award. In 2005, he won his third Bistro Award, for Best Major Engagement, for the show. He subsequently developed additional solo productions including Graae's Anatomy in 2007 and 49½ Shades of Graae in 2014.

In 2004, Graae performed the one-man play Fully Committed, in which he portrayed 30 different characters over 80 minutes, earning an Artistic Director's Achievement Award for the performance. In 2007, the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle presented him with the Joel Hirschhorn Award, given annually for outstanding achievement in musical theater. The following year he starred opposite Constance Towers in a Los Angeles revival of Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks, directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman, a production that had originally premiered at the Geffen Playhouse in 2001 with Uta Hagen and David Hyde Pierce. Graae and Pierce had previously worked together in a 1999 production of The Boys from Syracuse, playing long-lost identical twin brothers.

In 2012, Graae collaborated with longtime friend Faith Prince on The Prince and the Showboy, presented at 54 Below. The show incorporated material by Jerry Herman, composer of La Cage aux Folles and Hello, Dolly!, and included Graae's personal account of coming out to his mother in 1983. Prince and Graae received the New York Nightlife Award for outstanding musical comedy performer in January 2013. Graae also toured nationally as the Wonderful Wizard of Oz in the national tour of Wicked.