Will Chase

Will Chase, born Frank William Chase on September 12, 1970, in Frankfort, Kentucky, is an American actor, director, and singer whose career spans Broadway, television, and film. The youngest of three sons born to Betty and Jerry Chase, he graduated from Western Hills High School before enrolling at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he studied conducting with Robert Spano and percussion with Michael Rosen.

Chase launched his professional career in Chicago's regional theater scene, earning three Joseph Jefferson Award nominations before joining the 2nd National Tour of Miss Saigon as Chris. His Broadway debut came in 1998, when he joined the cast of Rent as the Squeegee Man and as understudy to the roles of Mark and Roger. He later returned to that production to star as Roger in the final Broadway company, a run that was captured for the theatrical release Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway. His early Broadway work also included Miss Saigon, in which he performed opposite original star Lea Salonga as the Broadway production closed, as well as The Full Monty in 2001, a replacement run as Radames in Aida from 2003 to 2004, and Lennon in 2005. Outside of Broadway during this period, he played Neville Craven in a 2005 World AIDS Day concert production of The Secret Garden.

In 2006, Chase starred in High Fidelity on Broadway. That same year he took on the role of Valentin in Kiss of the Spider Woman at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, earning a nomination for the 2009 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Lead Actor. Regional credits from this era include The Pajama Game opposite Kate Baldwin at The Muny in St. Louis in July 2007 and Oklahoma at the Lyric Theatre opposite Kelli O'Hara later that year. He returned to Broadway in 2009 in the short-lived musical The Story of My Life, and from 2009 to 2011 played Tony in Billy Elliot the Musical. In August 2012, he stepped in temporarily for Matthew Broderick as Jimmy Winter in Nice Work If You Can Get It.

Chase received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical at the 2013 ceremony for his portrayal of John Jasper and Mr. Clive Paget in the Broadway revival of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. In 2016, he succeeded Christian Borle in the role of William Shakespeare in Something Rotten! on Broadway. He returned to Broadway in 2019 to star as Fred Graham and Petruchio opposite Kelli O'Hara in the revival of Kiss Me, Kate.

On television, Chase is perhaps best known for playing country superstar Luke Wheeler across three seasons of ABC's Nashville. He also appeared as Michael Swift in the NBC series Smash and portrayed Neil Hargrove in the second season of Stranger Things in 2017. His additional television credits include recurring roles on Rescue Me as Pat Mahoney and appearances on Quantico, HBO's The Deuce, Sharp Objects, Blue Bloods, Pan Am, Royal Pains, Law and Order, Third Watch, Conviction, Queens Supreme, Canterbury's Law, Cupid, White Collar, Unforgettable, and the Hallmark film The Lost Valentine alongside Jennifer Love Hewitt and Betty White. In 2021 he played Michael Friedman in Danny Strong's Pulitzer Prize-winning series Dopesick, and in 2022 appeared as Kurt Dockweiler in the first season of Bosch: Legacy. He also completed production on Apple TV's The Crowded Room, starring alongside Tom Holland and Emmy Rossum, which premiered in June 2023.

Chase's film work includes the title role in the 2013 feature Butterflies of Bill Baker, for which he won Best Actor at the 2013 Chain Film Festival, and a voice role as the wolf Angee in A Warrior's Tail in 2016. He wrote and directed the short films Dagger in 2020, co-starring Jack Davenport, and Trunk Show in 2021, the latter of which won Best Short Film at the 2021 Ridgewood Guild International Film Festival and featured his children, actors Daisy and Gracie Chase. In 2024 he directed Mick Lynch's one-man show An Irish Goodbye at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, and in 2025 directed the feature documentary Coming Home: The Guggenheim Grotto Back In Ireland, which won the Jury Award for Best Short Film at the LIMEHOF Music Documentary Film Festival and Best Director of a Documentary at the Chain Film Festival. Chase co-wrote the musical short film Here, Bullet with composer Kurt Erickson, based on Erickson's prize-winning song cycle adapted from Brian Turner's 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award-winning poetry anthology of the same name, with production set for 2026. Alongside Erickson and Turner, Chase co-created and serves as a teaching artist for Finding Voice and Vision, a creative arts therapy program for veterans sponsored by the California Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. He is also set to join Jamie Foxx and director Andrés Baiz in the Netflix feature film Fight for '84.

Chase was married to Lori Davis from 1996 to 2008; the couple had two children together, actors Daisy and Gracie Chase. Davis has since passed away. He was subsequently married to actress Stephanie Gibson from 2009 until their divorce in 2012, and dated actress Debra Messing from 2011 to 2014. Since 2015 he has been in a relationship with musician Ingrid Michaelson.