William Mesnik
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[edit] William Mesnik
| William Mesnik | |
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American character actor-musician-playwright, born 1953
Started his career as a singer-songwriter in the mid 1970's, playing in such Greenwich Village coffeehouses as Paul Colby's The Other End.
Honed his playwriting skills as a regular contributor to The West Bank Downstairs Theater Bar repertory during the 80's, then went on to create several genre-bending musical theater pieces, including his music-drama about folksingers during the blacklist Three Songs (Fremont Centre Theatre, 1997, revived in 2002), garnering "Critic's Choice" in the Los Angeles Times, and a "Best Ensemble" Nomination (LA Weekly Awards).
Released an album, Campaign Songs, as an accompaniment to his drama Muckrakers: an evening of presidential campaign songs and family dysfunction, which debuted at FCT on the eve of the 2000 election.
A graduate of the Yale Drama School, Mesnik's theatrical resume encompasses Broadway (La Bete, Oh! Calcutta!), Off-Broadway (Modigliani, A Weekend Near Madison, Smoke On The Mountain, The Good Times Are Killing Me, The Rimers of Eldritch, among others), major regional venues such as Yale Rep, The Old Globe, McCarter Theatre, The Kennedy Center, and Actors Theater of Louisville, and European-American collaborative productions of Shakespeare's King Lear and Chekhov’s Ivanov(Moscow Art Theatre). In 2002, he was nominated for an Ovation award for his role as Holofernes in Shakespeare's Love's Labors Lost,produced by A Noise Within.
A familiar character face in the 90's from his numerous commercial, episodic television, and film appearances, including: L.A. Law, Law and Order, Lois and Clark, Murphy Brown, That 70's Show, Spin City, 3rd Rock From The Sun, Dharma & Greg, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Minority Report, Titanic, Stonebrook, and two films by John Schlessinger: The Next Best Thing, and Eye For An Eye.
