Actor and singer Norm Lewis, a native of Eatonville, Florida, made his Broadway debut in 1993 as a member of the ensemble in the hit musical production of The Who’s Tommy. Since then, he has appeared both on and off Broadway in a surprising range of musicals. Lewis played the role of Jake in Bill Russell and Henry Krieger’s 1997 musical, Side Show, and was a replacement in a number of shows – John in the long-running Miss Saigon in 1996 and Billy Flynn in the ongoing revival of Chicago early in 2004. In 2002 Lewis performed in the short-lived Amour, Jeremy Sams’s adaptation of the French musical by Michel LeGrand and Didier van Cauwelaert.
Lewis began his association with The Joseph Papp Public Theater and the New York Shakespeare Festival in 2000, appearing as Eddie Mackrel in Michael John LaChiusa’s musical adaptation of the poem, The Wild Party, by Joseph Moncure March. Five years later, he starred as Valentine in the 2005 Shakespeare in the Park revival production of the musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona by John Guare and Mel Shapiro with music by Galt MacDermot.
Off Broadway, in the Lincoln Center production of Dessa Rose, starring LaChanze and Rachel York, Norm Lewis earned a nomination for the 2005 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical. This led to his first starring role on Broadway as Javert in the 2006 revival of Les Misérables. For all of 2008 and most of 2009 he was starring as King Triton in the musical adaptation of The Little Mermaid.
He is one of the featured performers in Sondheim on Sondheim (2010).
