Manoel Felciano

Manoel Felciano is an American actor, singer, and songwriter born on November 12, 1970, in San Francisco, California. His father, Richard Felciano, is a contemporary composer and Professor Emeritus at UC Berkeley, and his mother, Rita Felciano, is a dance critic. He earned a humanities degree from Yale University before completing the Graduate Acting Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 2004. In 2009, he joined the core acting program at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, an institution where he had previously performed in Edward Albee's At Home at the Zoo and Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll. By 2022, Columbia University School of the Arts had appointed him as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Theatre.

Felciano made his Broadway debut as a swing in the 1998 revival of Cabaret, a production for which he also appeared on the cast recording. He subsequently returned to Broadway in Jesus Christ Superstar in 2000, covering the roles of Judas Iscariot and Annas while performing in the ensemble. His next Broadway credit came with Brooklyn, in which he understudied the role of Taylor Collins during the 2004–2005 run, and he appeared on that production's original cast recording as well.

His most prominent Broadway role came in the 2005 revival of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, in which he played Tobias Ragg. The production was distinguished by its requirement that all cast members perform their own instruments; Felciano played piano, violin, and clarinet. The performance earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical in 2006, and he contributed to the production's cast recording. After a decade away from Broadway, Felciano returned in 2016 with Disaster!, playing Wealthy Man, Taxi Driver, and Workman 2 while understudying the roles of Tony, Ted, and Maury. He next appeared in Amélie as Raphael and Bretodeau in 2017, again contributing to the original Broadway cast recording. His subsequent Broadway credits include Horace Gilmer in To Kill a Mockingbird in 2019, Larry Murphy in Dear Evan Hansen in 2022, and Tom Watson in the 2023 revival of Parade.

Beyond Broadway, Felciano built a substantial record in regional and off-Broadway theater. He played Andrei in a production of Three Sisters at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in July 2008 and appeared as Tateh in Ragtime at the Kennedy Center from April to May 2009, reprising that role off-Broadway in 2013. In 2016, he played Gleb in a production of Anastasia at Hartford Stage in Connecticut, which ran from May 12 to June 12 of that year. His off-Broadway credits also include Much Ado About Nothing, Shockheaded Peter, Trumpery, The Changeling, and By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, as well as the off-Broadway run of Parade in 2022 that preceded the Broadway revival. At the American Conservatory Theater, his credits include Clybourne Park, Round and Round the Garden, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, November, and A Christmas Carol, among others.