Steve Blanchard

Steve Blanchard is an American stage actor and singer born on December 4, 1958, in York, Pennsylvania, whose Broadway career spanned from 1984 to 2014. He is most closely associated with the role of The Beast in Beauty and the Beast, which he performed on Broadway for eight years. Blanchard attended the University of Maryland and is an alumnus of the Columbia Center for Theatrical Arts, after which he worked in dinner theatre before establishing himself in professional stage productions.

Before reaching Broadway, Blanchard built his early career across a range of regional and off-Broadway engagements. In 1981, he played the title role in Hans Christian Andersen in New York City. He subsequently appeared in The Threepenny Opera at the Charles Playhouse in Boston, Sleep of Reason at Center Stage in Baltimore, Godspell and Hot Mikado at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., The Robber Bridegroom at the West End in Virginia, and Jesus Christ Superstar at the Candlewood Playhouse. His first connection to Broadway came in 1984, when he understudied Brent Spiner as Aramis in the Broadway revival of The Three Musketeers, though the production closed after one week and Blanchard did not perform the role. He also toured nationally in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in 1987 and spent nearly three years on the road with Ken Hill's Phantom of the Opera beginning in 1989, followed by a national tour of Camelot in 1992.

Blanchard made his first credited Broadway appearance in the 1993 revival of Camelot, playing Lancelot du Lac, a role he continued on the subsequent national tour. He then joined the Broadway cast of Beauty and the Beast, where he played both Gaston and The Beast, holding the latter role through 2007. In regional theatre during the 1990s, he appeared as Freddie Trumper in Chess at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey, and performed in productions including Esmeralda at St. Louis Rep, Annie Get Your Gun at Westbury, and South Pacific in Atlanta. In 1995, he portrayed Fred Anderson and the Headless Ghost in Alan Menken's version of A Christmas Carol at the Madison Square Garden theatre.

Blanchard originated the role of Johnny in the off-Broadway musical Johnny Guitar at the Century Center for the Performing Arts in March 2004. In 2007, he appeared off-Broadway in Frankenstein, a New Musical as the Condemned Man and the Creature, and he also appeared in An Oak Tree off-Broadway. In regional work, he portrayed Julian Marsh in 42nd Street at TUTS in Houston, Texas in July 2009 and later at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine in July 2019. Beginning at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis in 2008, Blanchard began performing the role of Pa in the stage musical version of Little House on the Prairie, returning to the role at the Paper Mill Playhouse from September through October 2009.

Blanchard played Joseph Pulitzer on the first national tour of Newsies, which launched on October 22, 2014, in Schenectady, New York, and ran through October 2, 2016, in Austin, Texas. His wife, Meredith Inglesby, played Hannah on the same tour. He has made guest appearances on television programs including Law & Order and Third Watch, as well as appearances in daytime dramas. Blanchard sang the title role in the original recording of the musical Sundown, based on the Legend of Doc Holliday, and released a solo CD titled Northbound Train, on which he performs songs from productions in which he has appeared.