Ethan Phillips received an MFA from
Cornell University. He began his show business career in New York City, performing off-Broadway at theaters including Direct Theater, winning the Best of the Actors’ Festival there in 1977; the Wonderhorse Theater, in the premier of
Christopher Durang's The Nature and Purpose of the Universe; and at
Playwrights Horizons in a revival of
Eccentricities of a Nightingale. Legendary writer,
Tennessee Williams who helped shape the latter production, wrote a new monologue for Phillips, which Williams personally dictated to him when it was realized that leading lady
Jill Eikenberry needed more time for a dress change.
In 1979–80, Phillips appeared as
Utrillo in the premier of Dennis McIntyre's Modigliani at the
Astor Place Theater It ran for 208 performances.
Phillips performed in many plays in New York over the next fifteen years, including
Terrence McNally's
Lips Together, Teeth Apart at the Lucille Lortel,
Measure for Measure with
Kevin Kline, at the
Delacorte Theater; and the premier of
My Favorite Year at
Lincoln Center as well as new works for
Playwrights Horizons[1] the
Hudson Guild Theater, the
American Jewish Theater, and many others.
He went on to appear in the premier of
David Mamet's
November at the
Ethel Barrymore Theater and played the title character opposite
Peter Dinklage in the all-male cast of
The Imaginary Invalid for
Bard College</ref> s 2012 SummerScape Festival. In 2013-14 he appeared as Stanley Levison in Robert Schenkkan's All the Way at the American Repertory Theater Mr. Phillips moved with the show to Broadway’s
Neil Simon Theater where the play won Tonys for Best Play and Best Actor
Bryan Cranston. More recently Mr. Phillips played leading roles in the premiers of
Dennis Kelly’s Taking Care Of Baby, Terrence McNally's
Golden Age, and Sharyn Rothstein’s By the Water, all for the Manhattan Theater Club.
Phillips' regional theater credits include leading roles for San Diego's
Old Globe Theater, the
Alaska Repertory Theater, at
Seattle Repertory Theater, at Baltimore's Center Stage, for the
[2]Boston Shakespeare Company,
Actors Theater of Louisville, The
American Repertory Theater, the
Salt Lake Acting Co., and the
McCarter Theatre. In Los Angeles, Phillips acted in
Side Man at the
Pasadena Playhouse, in
Lips Together, Teeth Apart for the
Mark Taper Forum; in You Can't Take It with You at the
Geffen Playhouse, in
The Bourgeois Gentleman for the
Pasadena Symphony, and as
Polonius in Hamlet for the
Uprising Theater.
Phillips has been an actor at the Sundance Playwrights Conference in Utah for six summers, where he developed his play Penguin Blues,[1] which is published by
Samuel French Inc. and is included in The Best Short Plays of 1989 (Applause, ed. Ramon Delgado). Based on his experiences at
Sundance, Phillips helped found First Stage, a playwright development lab in Los Angeles now in its Thirty-Fifth year.
