Shuler Paul Hensley (born March 6, 1967) is an American singer and actor.

Early life

Hensley was born in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

. The youngest of three children, Hensley grew up in

Marietta, Georgia Marietta is a city in and the county seat of Cobb County, Georgia, United States. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 60,972. The 2019 estimate was 60,867, making it one of Atlanta's largest suburbs. Marietta is the fourth largest ...

. His father, Sam P. Hensley Jr., is a former Georgia Tech

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

star, retired civil engineer and former state senator. His mother, Iris Hensley, (

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

Antley), was a ballerina, and later, Founder and Artistic Director of the Georgia Ballet

Professional Company and school. Hensley had an early start in show business at the age of four when he appeared as Fritz in her production of ''

The Nutcracker ''The Nutcracker'' (, ), Opus number, Op. 71, is an 1892 two-act classical ballet (conceived as a '; ) by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, set on Christmas Eve at the foot of a Christmas tree in a child's imagination featuring a Nutcracker doll. Th ...

''. He was educated at The Westminster Schools and attended the

University of Georgia The University of Georgia (UGA or Georgia) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia, United States. Chartered in 1785, it is the oldest public university in th ...

on a

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

scholarship. After attending a recital by Jessye Norman and being cast as Judge Turpin in a college production of '' Sweeney Todd'', he decided to transfer after his second year to the

Manhattan School of Music The Manhattan School of Music (MSM) is a private music conservatory A music school is an educational institution specialized in the study, training, and research of music. Such an institution can also be known as a school of music, music a ...

, where he majored in opera and graduated in 1989. From there, he went to the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, and obtained his master's degree in 1993.

Career

Hensley's stage career began in the early 1990s with roles such as Pitkin in '' On the Town'', Joe in '' The Most Happy Fella'', and Miles Gloriosus in '' A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum'', He has also sung in the

Gilbert and Sullivan Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) and to the works they jointly created. The two men collaborated on fourteen com ...

operettas '' Pirates of Penzance'' and ''

Patience or forbearance, is the ability to endure difficult or undesired long-term circumstances. Patience involves perseverance or tolerance in the face of delay, provocation, or stress without responding negatively, such as reacting with disrespect ...

'' and in the operas ''

Carmen ''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first performed by the O ...

'', '' Faust'', ''

La bohème ''La bohème'' ( , ) is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions '':wikt:quadro, quadri'', ''wikt:tableau, tableaux'' or "images", rather than ''atti'' (acts). composed by Giacomo Puccini between 1893 and 1895 to an Italian libretto b ...

'' and ''

Don Giovanni ''Don Giovanni'' (; K. 527; full title: , literally ''The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni'') is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its subject is a centuries-old Spanish legen ...

''. And in addition to an early ''

Oklahoma! ''Oklahoma!'' is the first musical theater, musical written by the duo of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs's 1931 play, ''Green Grow the Lilacs (play), Green Grow the Lilacs''. Set in farm country outside the town of ...

'' casting as Jud Fry at the North Shore Music Theatre,

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, Shuler also played Curly at the Skylight Opera Theatre,

Milwaukee Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...

. In 1996, he went to

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

, Germany to perform the title role in '' The Phantom of the Opera'' in German. In 1998, he was cast as Jud Fry for London's National Theatre production of ''Oklahoma!'' The revival was a huge success and Hensley received wonderful personal notices as well as the Olivier Award. He continued to play the role when the show transferred to the West End (1999), the only American native in the cast, and then to Broadway (2002–2003), where he won a Tony, a

Drama Desk Award The Drama Desk Awards are among the most esteemed honors in New York theater, recognizing outstanding achievements across Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway productions within the same categories. The awards are considered a signific ...

and an Outer Critics Circle Award for the same role. He has performed on several occasions with Hugh Jackman. They both performed in the musical ''Oklahoma!'' in London in 1998, as well as in the films '' Someone Like You'', and '' Van Helsing'', in the latter of which Hensley played Frankenstein's monster and also performed reference motion capture as

Mr. Hyde Dr. Henry Jekyll and his alter ego Mr. Edward Hyde are the central character of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde''. In the story, Dr. Jekyll is a good friend of main protagonist Gabriel John Utterso ...

. He cameoed in '' The Greatest Showman'' which starred Jackman. In 2021, Hensley and Jackman starred as Marcellus Washburn and Harold Hill in the broadway revival of '' The Music Man'' Hensley also starred in the Broadway production of '' Young Frankenstein'' as the Monster. For this role he was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical. He also reprised the role in the United States national tour which also featured his former co-stars Roger Bart and Cory English. He again played the role in the 2017 West End production. In 2011 he portrayed American

Yiddish theatre Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satire, satiric or nostalgic revues; melodr ...

great Boris Thomashefsky in ''The Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater'', a concert stage show celebrating the Thomashefskys and the music of Yiddish theatre, hosted by their grandson the conductor

Michael Tilson Thomas Michael Tilson Thomas (born December 21, 1944) is an American conductor, pianist, and composer. He is Artistic Director Laureate of the New World Symphony, an American orchestral academy in Miami Beach, Florida, Music Director Laureate of the S ...

. The show aired on the PBS series ''

Great Performances ''Great Performances'' is a television anthology series dedicated to the performing arts; the banner has been used to televise plays, musicals, opera, ballet, concerts, as well as occasional documentaries. It is produced by the PBS member statio ...

'' in 2012. In 2012 he starred as a 600-pound man in the Off Broadway production of '' The Whale'' at Playwrights Horizons. In April–May 2015, Hensley sang the role of the Celebrant in Leonard Bernstein's ''Mass'', in a concert version with the Philadelphia Orchestra under conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin.Philadelphia Orchestra, Bernstein's Mass
from YouTube. Later that year he appeared in a Tokyo production of Hal Prince's '' Prince of Broadway''. In fall 2016, Hensley co-starred with Sutton Foster in The New Group's revival of '' Sweet Charity''. The Georgia High School Musical Theatre Awards are also known as the Shuler Hensley Awards in his honor. The winners of these awards qualify to go on to the national Jimmy Awards.

Work

Stage productions

Broadway * ''

Les Misérables ''Les Misérables'' (, ) is a 19th-century French literature, French Epic (genre), epic historical fiction, historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published on 31 March 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century. '' ...

'' ( Javert) * ''

'' (Jud Fry) * ''

Tarzan Tarzan (John Clayton, Viscount Greystoke) is a fictional character, a feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer. Creat ...

'' (

Kerchak Kerchak is a fictional ape character in Edgar Rice Burroughs's original '' Tarzan'' novel, '' Tarzan of the Apes'', and in movies and other media based on it. History In the novel ''Tarzan of the Apes'', Kerchak is the "king" of a tribal band of ...

) * '' Young Frankenstein'' ( The Monster) * '' No Man's Land'' (Briggs) * ''

Waiting for Godot ''Waiting for Godot'' ( or ) is a 1953 play by Irish writer and playwright Samuel Beckett, in which the two main characters, Vladimir (Waiting for Godot), Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo), engage in a variety of discussions and encounters w ...

'' (Pozzo) * '' The Ferryman (play)'' (Tom Kettle) * '' The Music Man'' (Marcellus Washburn) Off-Broadway * '' Sweet Charity'' (Oscar) * '' The Great American Trailer Park Musical'' * '' The Whale'' (Charlie) * '' Assassins'' (Leon Czolgosz) Other credits * ''It's All About Us'' - Westport Playhouse * ''

'' (Jud Fry) - West End * ''Newsies'' (

Joseph Pulitzer Joseph Pulitzer ( ; born , ; April 10, 1847 – October 29, 1911) was a Hungarian-American politician and a newspaper publisher of the ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' and the ''New York World''. He became a leading national figure in the U.S. Democ ...

) - Workshop * '' The Phantom of the Opera'' ( The Phantom of the Opera) - Hamburg, Germany * '' The Most Happy Fella'' - American Songbook / Lincoln Center * '' Regina'' - Kennedy Center * '' Young Frankenstein'' ( The Monster) - United States National Tour & West End * ''Hercules'' (Hades) - Paper Mill Playhouse * '' A Little Night Music'' (Count Carl Magnus) -

David Geffen Hall David Geffen Hall is a concert hall at Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. The 2,200-seat auditorium opened in 1962, and is the home of the New York Philharmonic. The facility, designed by Max Abramovitz, was o ...

* ''

My Fair Lady ''My Fair Lady'' is a musical theatre, musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story, based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play ''Pygmalion (play), Pygmalion'' and on the Pygmalion (1938 film), 1938 film ...

'' (Alfred P. Doolittle) - Aspen Music Festival

Filmography

* ''

'' (1999) * ''Someone Like You'' (2001) * '' A Wedding for Bella'' (2001) * '' Van Helsing'' (2004) * '' Opa!'' (2005) * '' The Legend of Zorro'' (2005) * ''Monday Night Mayhem'' (2002) * '' After.Life'' (2009) * '' Law & Order: Criminal Intent'' * '' Ed'' * '' Odd Thomas'' (2013) * '' Neon Joe, Werewolf Hunter'' (2015) * '' The OA'' (2016) * '' The Greatest Showman'' (2017) * '' Dexter: New Blood'' as Elric (2021)

Discography

* ''

'' 1998 Royal National Theatre Recording as Jud Fry * ''Frankenstein'', The Musical Highlights Concept/Demo Recording, released in 2001 as the Creature * '' The Great American Trailer Park Musical: Off-Broadway Cast Recording'' released January 2006 * ''

: Original Broadway Cast Recording'', June 2006 * ''Broadway's Greatest Gifts: Carols for a Cure'' Volume 9, 2007 * '' Young Frankenstein: Original Broadway Cast Recording''

References

External links

Shuler Hensley official website
* *

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hensley, Shuler 1967 births Living people Male actors from Atlanta American male film actors American male musical theatre actors American male television actors Drama Desk Award winners Manhattan School of Music alumni Laurence Olivier Award winners Musicians from Marietta, Georgia Tony Award winners University of Georgia alumni Curtis Institute of Music alumni The Westminster Schools alumni