Wade McCollum

Wade McCollum is an American actor, composer, and musician born in 1978 in Chico, California, whose career spans Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theatre, and film. His father is a rock-and-roll drummer, and McCollum spent his early years traveling from town to town before settling for a period in Ashland, Oregon, home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He left high school at sixteen to enroll at the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, from which he subsequently graduated.

Following his conservatory training, McCollum took on the role of Hedwig in a 2002 Triangle Theatre production of John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask's rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch. He reprised the role in multiple subsequent productions, most notably the 2004 Celebration Theatre staging in Hollywood, California, which earned an Ovation Award. For that production, McCollum received the Backstage West Garland Award and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, with coverage from publications including Variety and the Los Angeles Times. In 2006, he released a music album titled Beauty is a Streetlight.

McCollum built an extensive regional theatre résumé that included playing Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the Emcee in Cabaret opposite Storm Large as Sally Bowles, and Prior in Angels in America, all while based in Portland. At Portland Center Stage, he starred in Bat Boy: The Musical, as well as the one-person productions I Am My Own Wife and The Santaland Diaries. During this period he also co-founded and served as artistic director of Insight Out Theatre Collective, where his original musical ONE, also known as The Other Shore, was produced and remained in development for commercial production as of 2022.

McCollum appeared in Jersey Boys before leading the First National Tour of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and he subsequently made his Broadway debut in Wicked upon returning to New York City. His Off-Broadway work includes Triassic Parq and the role of Ernest Shackleton in Ernest Shackleton Loves Me, for which he received a Lucille Lortel Award nomination and won the Norton Award for Best Actor. The production won the Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best Musical in 2017 and was streamed live and made available on Broadway HD. In 2011, McCollum played the Emcee in Dallas Theatre Center's Cabaret opposite Kate Wetherhead, who created the web comedy Submissions Only, in which McCollum portrayed the recurring character Nolan Grigsby.

In 2018, McCollum originated the role of Carl von Cosel in the new musical It Happened in Key West during its run on London's West End. His first stage work following the COVID-19 shutdown came as a last-minute emergency cover for the role of Henry Higgins in Lincoln Center Theatre's national tour of My Fair Lady, directed by Bartlett Sher, a production listed among his credits as My Fair Ladies. In 2022, he completed Secondary Dominance, a feature film he co-directed and co-wrote with collaborator Sarah Small.

McCollum originated the role of Wade in Water for Elephants at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta in 2023. He then created and starred in the solo show Make Me Gorgeous Off-Broadway at Playhouse 46, which was extended for three months and earned a Lucille Lortel Award nomination for Best Solo Show. McCollum's performance received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Best Solo Performance, and he won Best Solo Performance at the Off-Broadway Alliance Awards. In 2024, he left the production when Darius Rose replaced him, as McCollum moved to Broadway to originate a principal role in Water for Elephants. Directed by Jessica Stone, with a book by Rick Elice, music composed by PigPen Theatre Company, and choreography by Jesse Robb and Shana Carroll of Seven Fingers Circus, the production received seven Tony Award nominations including Best Musical. McCollum performed the song "The Road Don't Make You Young" from the show during the 2024 Tony Awards broadcast on CBS.

McCollum is married to artist Noah Jordan. His father-in-law is Robert Lefkowitz, who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2012.