Actor, writer, producer and director Bobby Reed has been in show business for over 40 years. The details are below, but suffice it to say he’s a lifer. The gigs change, but Bobby’s devotion to his career as an artistic creator has been continuous. With the early support of an ever-encouraging family, he plunged head first into performing at an tender age, and continues to this day. Always up for a new challenge, he is loving his most recent work produced in Los Angeles for the web, and really sees that as the future of entertainment delivery.

As Nick in Herb Gardner's A Thousand Clowns (1970)

UPSTATE NEW YORK (1956-1974) Born in Manhattan on September 26, 1956, and then adopted by the Reed family in May of 1957, Middletown, New York was the perfect welcoming and wonderful place to start a show business career. Beginning as Hansel in Hansel & Gretel at 6 years old, Bobby began performing and never stopped. Shows in the front yard starring friends and his sister, Missy, and local community and stock theaters provided lots of shows and laughs; before the age of 17, Bobby got to play some of the great American roles: Tulsa in Gypsy, Lucky in Dames at Sea, Hero in Forum, Matt in The Fantasticks, Young Zorba in Zorba. Dramas, comedies and musicals gave him a great beginning. And a mom who drove and drove (the car, not Bobby). That counts for a lot, of course. He produced and directed The Wizard of Oz in 9th Grade, and performed at the local community college in roles when they needed a kid his age. There were so many wonderful places to perform in and around Middletown in those days.

As Bruce in Bill Solly and Donald Ward’s Boy Meets

Boy (1975)

MANHATTAN (1974-1999) Thanks to those abundant opportunities in the local theater community upstate, Bobby arrived in Manhattan in the fall of 1974 with a 30-show résumé. That can be a big advantage when you’re beginning at the American Musical & Dramatic Academy (then on Bleecker Street in the Village), but things did not go well in academia. The school had a “no auditioning” policy, and that would not work for ambitious Bobby (with all the New York shows just outside his door! Are you kidding?). He was cast in his first Off-Off-Broadway musical at Edith O’Hara’s 13th St. Theater (Edith is the mom of famed actresses Jenny and Jill O’Hara) within a very short time after arriving at AMDA, so he left school to jump, yet again, onto the wicked stage. Boy Meets Boy transferred to Off-Broadway in 1975, and began a long, successful run at The Actors’ Playhouse on 7th Avenue South as the first gay American musical. Lots of shows followed (minus the out-of-town stints described below), encompassing loads of lovely jobs in stage, film, cabaret, television, industrials, and commercials. Bobby also produced several stage plays and lectures (Under the Kerosene Moon at The Kitchen and On Cultural Power: The August Wilson/Robert Brustein Debate for TCG’s American Theatre Magazine at The Town Hall among them), and founded the not-for-profit theater company Antithetical Theatrical with his dear friend, actor/writer Shawn Nacol.

Bobby (left) in a production number from Liberty’s Song at The Grand Ole Opry (1976)

NASHVILLE (1976) A terrific season at Opryland USA (they auditioned in New York, where the casting director had been a fan of Boy Meets Boy and had the cast album), but in those days it was very “wink wink” when Bobby went in to audition, when it came to gay things. The casting director made sure to tell Bobby about his album, and thus he was cast in their bicentennial extravaganza Liberty’s Song (a sweeping national historical pageant narrated by a Ben Franklin character with much flag waving; as theme park shows go, this was big budget!), to be produced in the famed Grand Ole Opry House. Lots of singing and dancing and sequins, to celebrate the nation’s founding. Trips to The White House Correspondents’ Dinner and a couple of other road excursions (the touring version starred Tennessee Ernie Ford as the host/narrator) accented this wonderful experience. Full orchestra, stunning Broadway-level sets and costumes; it was quite a party. The amazing cast included future Broadway star Patti Cohenour, and actor/dancer Bubba Rambo (he went on to work for Dolly Parton). Opryland had many other terrific live shows in the theme park, but this was the crown jewel for that season (and only produced for that year and occasion).

Bobby Reed Biography

As a Guard in Steve Spielberg’s “1941” (1979)

LOS ANGELES I (1979) A brief stint in Los Angeles (because some of his New York friends were getting television shows, and Bobby wanted some of that), he took off for LA. Little did he know you actually have to be in the market for a while, and work your way up. He presumed that he would just be cast as he left the plane. Oh well, after a couple of smaller gigs (winning The Dating Game was a definite highlight), he returned to the safety and comfort of familiar New York.

Recording session for the Boy Meets Boy original cast

album, Blank Tape Studios, New York (1975)

RECORDING As a jingle singer, Bobby recorded spots for IBM, Good Housekeeping, Reader's Digest, Kinney Shoes, Sylvania Lighting Products and Enro Shirts, among many others. He is also a featured vocalist on Macmillan's hit “Sing & Learn” series of 24 children's albums produced by Peter Fish for Filmus (still in use today by little ones the world over). Original cast albums include Boy Meets Boy and Tom Judson’s White Cotton Sheets.

At Kelly’s Village West, Greenwich Village (1975)

CABARET & NIGHTCLUB PERFORMANCE Cabaret performing seemed like a natural extension of stage work, so Bobby first performed at Kelly’s Village West on Bedford St. in New York’s Greenwich Village (thank you Kelly Dunkle). Years of cabaret work saw gigs at Reno Sweeney, The Duplex (where he won the Stars of Tomorrow contest and $100!), Eighty-Eights, Horn of Plenty, The Village Gate, West Bank Café, The Fives, The Bushes of Central Park West, Trude Heller, and s.n.a.f.u. Band and nightclub work included vocalist (tenor) with The Ultimates (a Brooklyn-based doo-wop band, where they began a cappella, but eventually added guitar and drums), Bobby Reed & The Bobations, Bobby Reed & The Harris Sisters, and backing vocals for Michael Musto & The Must. Musto’s group was a neo-Motown extravaganza, and was the most successful of these groups (Michael was also a columnist for The Village Voice, so that helped) playing Limelight, Danceteria, Studio 54, Zippers, The Tunnel and Peppermint Lounge. As the booking agent for Tramps Nightclub on East 15th Street, Bobby booked such great acts of the era as Zora Rasmussen, Pamala Stanley, Baby Jane Dexter, and Stormin’ Norman & Suzy.

Mark Bego, Bobby, and Michael Musto in Casino Evil at

Danceteria (1982)

NIGHTCLUB PRODUCER Bobby created and produced some of the largest nightclub (aka “dance club”) extravaganzas of the 1980s in New York. First came the Halloween show Casino Evil at Danceteria (produced with Mark Bego and Brant Mewborn) starring Ellen Foley (Bobby and Ellen had been in Boy Meets Boy together when it began on 13th St., and by now she had gone on to rock fame with Meatloaf) as well as many other downtown luminaries. Following on that success, he created and produced Stupid Cupid at Danceteria, Bunny Hop and Surf’s Up! at Studio 54, Casino Evil II at The Red Parrot, and Stupid Cupid II at Xenon. These were multi-act thematic music shows (starring all his friends, naturally, as well as himself) backed by a core band of some of the best sidemen on the New York music scene at the time, courtesy of John Rinehimer’s Johnny Veal Orchestra.

As The Devil (center) in Everett Quinton and Mark Bennett’s

Linda (1993)

THE RIDICULOUS THEATRICAL CO. (1989-1992) In 1989, Everett Quinton asked Bobby if could sing and would wear a dress. The answer to both was “yes” and thus began one of the happiest and most creative periods of his life. Over the next few years, Bobby would play many roles (both male and not) in the famed Off-Broadway theater company founded by the late Charles Ludlam, notably Masie Madigan in Big Hotel, St. Gaudens in Camille (Drama Desk Award for Best Revival; then the company took Camille to London), Welgunde in Der Ring Gott Farblonjet (the company won an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence during this show), Frieda Hornblatt in How to Write a Play, Judge Poussypaine in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Devil and Hank in Linda, and Bob Cratchit in A Christmas Carol.

In Scott Brown’s Relapse (2011)

LOS ANGELES II (1999-PRESENT) After learning where all the roads in Los Angeles lead, Bobby set out to make some movies. To get lots of footage initially, he made over 75 films for the University of Southern California’s film program, as well as films for AFI, Chapman University, and UCLA. That initial work prepared him to move into indies and features, of which he has quite a collection. Television work has come, too, with shows on The Hallmark Channel, FX and CBS, NBC and ABC. As the internet comes of age, lots of web series (many of which are made in LA) have come his way as well, in the form of Appleseed Elementary, Blue Movies, Manipulation, and Relapse. Bobby currently makes his home in Silver Lake. Please visit bobbyreed.com for more information.