American Actor, Director, Producer and Teacher.
Justin has performed professionally in theatre, television, film, and audiobooks. He graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts with a B.F.A. in Drama and continued his training at the Brown University/Trinity Rep Acting Program, obtaining a Master of Fine Arts in Acting. He is a member of the Actors Equity Association (AEA) and the Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Announcers (SAG/AFTRA).
Mr. Blanchard made his professional acting debut starring on Broadway in the acclaimed production of Journey’s End at the Belasco Theatre. Journey’s End received a Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, Drama League Award and a special citation from the New York Drama Critics Circle for Best Revival of a Play (2007). Since then he has performed major roles in over a dozen new and classic plays with Fiasco Theater Company (Iachimo in Cymbeline), Ma-Yi Theatre Company (Jesus in Jesus In India), Shakespeare Festival St. Louis (Iago in Othello, Lysander in Midsummer Night’s Dream), Theatre for a New Audience (Malcolm in Macbeth; Nearchus in The Broken Heart), Red Bull Theatre (Frank Thorney in The Witch of Edmonton, Jasperino in the The Changeling), Long Wharf Theatre (Chester in world premiere of Paula Vogel’s A Civil War Christmas), McCarter Theatre Center (Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol), Berkeley Repertory Theatre (Hylas in world premiere of Mary Zimmerman’s Argonautika), Actors Theater of Louisville (Willoughby in world premiere of Jon Jory’s adaptation of Sense and Sensibility), Trinity Repertory Company (Proteus in Two Gentlemen of Verona; Laertes in Hamlet), Hangar Theatre (Orlando in As You Like It); and the Shakespeare Theatre of Washington D.C. (Hylas/Dymas in Zimmerman’s remount of Argonautika). Mr. Blanchard also starred as Hamlet in Hamlet and Henry in Henry V for New York Classical Theatre.
On television, Mr. Blanchard guest starred on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and the PBS miniseries The Mystery of Matter: Marie Curie. Early television credits include appearances on All My Children, Guiding Light and One Life to Live. He has also been featured in commercials for Oscar De La Renta (Directed by David Fincher) and the MTV: Safe Sex campaign.
On film, he is featured in the major motion picture The Finest Hours (Walt Disney Studios), starring Chris Pine and Eric Bana. He has appeared in the independent films The Middleman, Over There, and Alyssa & Sara.
As a voice-over artist, Justin voiced multiple characters in the widely-downloaded audiobooks for Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
In support of new and classic work, Mr. Blanchard has performed in numerous developmental workshops and staged readings. Recently, he performed in the pre-Broadway producer’s workshop of the musical ZORBA, directed by David Leveaux, starring alongside Antonio Banderas and Chita Rivera. In 2015, he played King James of Scotland in Perkin Warbeck for Red Bull Theatre’s Revelation Reading Series, and he also workshopped the translation of Alpine Blues by Austrian playwright Thomas Arzt at The Lark Play Development Center.
He has performed in staged readings for The Public Theater, Roundabout Theatre Company, Playwrights’ Horizons, Second Stage, Theatre for a New Audience, Fiasco Theater Company, Red Bull Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, New Dramatists, SoHo Rep, Partial Comfort, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Classic Stage Company, Gloucester Stage, and the McCarter Theatre Center. In August of 2016, Justin performed in a concert with the Landmarck Orchestra at the Hatch Shell in Boston as Antipholus of Syracuse in the Boys from Syracuse.
Mr. Blanchard’s belief in the power of live theatre inspires his work as a master acting teacher. He has trained students in the craft of acting at the high school, college and graduate levels. Mr. Blanchard has taught classes in the craft of acting at Brown University, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Marquette University, and the Brown University/Trinity Rep M.F.A. Acting Program. He has taught acting, movement and voice classes for Fiasco Theater Company’s Training Initiative, a classical acting intensive for professional actors in New York City and students at colleges such as Marquette University, Duke University, LSU, and NYU-Gallatin. Mr. Blanchard has also taught introductory acting technique to high school students interested in pursuing a career in the arts at the School for Visual Arts summer program and the Shakespeare Festival St. Louis’ summer intensive.
As a volunteer arts educator, he has served as an after-school mentor and taught Shakespeare, playwriting, stage combat, and acting technique at The 52nd Street Project, an organization that pairs inner-city children ages 9-16 with a professional actor to create original theatre. Following Mr. Blanchard’s experience as a nationally recognized Speech and Debate competitor in high school, he has since served as the Assistant Coach for the Speech and Debate Team at Stuyvesant High School, a magnet school in New York City, where he coached multiple first-generation American students to qualify for the National Forensics Tournament. Most recently, Mr. Blanchard has prepared young actors to audition for undergraduate and graduate acting conservatories. His students have gone on to train as actors at elite programs at NYU-Tisch, NYU-Steinhardt, Brown University/Trinity Rep M.F.A. Acting, Yale University, and the Central School for Speech and Drama (UK) .
Mr. Blanchard’s enjoyment for creating live theatre is inspiration for his work as theatrical director. Mr. Blanchard has directed student productions at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and the Brown University/Trinity Rep M.F.A. Acting Program. He created and directed an immersive theatrical event based on Dante’s Inferno at Villa La Pietra in Florence, Italy, and he has also directed plays at the Culture Project, 440 Studios and the Stella Adler Conservatory in New York City. Most recently Mr. Blanchard directed his two-man adaptation of Romeo & Juliet at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn, New York for the Brooklyn Shakespeare Festival.
As a producer, Mr. Blanchard has managed financing, fundraising, and supervised the making and presentation of successful productions at the The Independent Theater (Simpatico), Windmill Studios (Don’t You F*ckin’ Say a Word, a new play by Brown-alum Andy Bragen), The 4th Street Theatre (Bull’s Eye, new play by filmmaker Brad Winderbaum), and Stella Adler Conservatory (This is Our Youth).
Mr. Blanchard is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts with a B.F.A. in Drama, B.A. Minor in English. While at Tisch, he was the recipient of the Trustees’ Scholarship for Exceptional Performance. His acting training at NYU included work in musical theatre at CAP21 (Stanislavsky-based acting, Linklater voice, vocal technique-singing, ballet, tap, jazz), physical theatre at the Experimental Theatre Wing (early Grotowski-based acting, Viewpoints, Roy Hart Voice, devised theatre) and the Stonestreet Film and Television Studio (Stanislavsky, Strasberg, Adler acting techniques). Mr. Blanchard was invited to advanced training at NYU-Tisch’s International Theatre Workshop in Amsterdam. Advanced training included: American acting techniques (Stanislavsky, Strasberg, Adler, Meisner, Atlantic Theatre Company), physically based acting (Viewpoints and early Grotowski), action-based script analysis, postmodern dance (technique, improvisation, and choreography), commedia, clowning, Le Coq mask work, self-scripting and image-based original theatre, real time narrative acting (Brecht), singing and extended voice work (Roy Hart), and Shakespeare. Mr. Blanchard acted in numerous NYU-Tisch mainstage and student productions. He also performed in summer stock seasons at the New London Barn Playhouse (NH) and Forestburgh Playhouse (NY).
Justin continued his training at the Brown University/Trinity Rep Acting Program, obtaining a Master of Fine Arts in Acting. At Brown he trained as an actor, director and playwright with distinguished faculty including: Oskar Eustis (Dramaturgy, Directing), Paula Vogel (Playwriting), Brian McEleney (Acting), Thom Jones (Voice), Kevin Moriarty (Directing), Chris Bayes (Movement, Commedia, Clown), Stephen Buescher (Movement, Mask), Amanda Dehnert (Directing), Erin Cressida Wilson (Playwriting), and Stephen Berenson (Acting). While at Brown, Mr. Blanchard performed on Trinity Repertory Company’s main stages and was a member of the Brown/Trinity Playwrights Rep.
“Justin Blanchard’s Malcolm were especially noteworthy. The odd, cumbersome scene between Macduff and Malcolm, in which Malcolm tests Macduff’s loyalty, was exceptional, rendered so by the fine performance of Justin Blanchard.”
Shakespeare Bulletin
Reviewed by Katharine GoodlandJustin Blanchard takes control of the character of Hamlet – never an easy role to play, let alone when you’re doing it in a dynamic setting like this one, where settings and costumes are simple, and the actor must truly grab the audience. He was marvelous and captivating.
