Biography
Christopher Gurr [he/him/his] is an American actor and director known for playing a vast range of roles on Broadway and in theaters across the United States (as well as the more readily accessible reaches of Canada).
He was born in the Deep South, educated in the Midwest, ripened by the sun and sea of California and matured in the mountains of Appalachia before making his home in New York City.
Gurr starred as Bustopher Jones and Gus (“the cat at the theatre door”) in the Broadway revival of Cats at the Neil Simon Theatre. In that same theater, he made his Broadway debut playing Senator Strom Thurmond opposite Byran Cranston’s LBJ in the Tony Award-winning play, All The Way. Between that notorious Dixiecrat and cats both fat and thin, Gurr has been seen on Broadway as, among other things, a villainous fop and a hard-nosed sea captain (Amazing Grace), a factory owner and his fastidious foreman (two different stints in Kinky Boots), and a very, very strange man in a yellow suit (Tuck Everlasting). Recent Off-Broadway and regional productions featured Gurr in Marie, Dancing Still at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre, the world premiere of The Sting opposite Harry Connick, Jr. at The Paper Mill Playhouse, Titanic and Oklahoma! at Pittsburgh’s Civic Light Opera, and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at Classic Stage Company in New York City opposite Raúl Esparza.
Gurr made his commercial theatre debut in the first national tour of the Tony Award-winning musical, Monty Python’s Spamalot. Sometimes as Mrs. Galahad and Sir Bedevere, sometimes as King Arthur, he performed all over North America for the better part of four years. His next first national tour found Gurr playing seven different types of mean white cracker in the Tony Award-winning musical, Memphis.
Gurr’s other roles include Hitler (History of War), Heisenberg (Copenhagen), Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry (Getting The Band Back Together), Uncle Ernie (The Who’s Tommy), Ali Hakim (Oklahoma!), Aldolpho (The Drowsy Chaperone), Geoffrey (The Lion In Winter), and Rutledge (1776).
His directing projects include productions of Nine, Camelot, Heartbreak House, Into The Woods, Die Fledermaus, Billy Bishop Goes To War, Wesley Middleton’s Tomato Plant Girl, James Still’s Meet Me Incognito, the world premiere of José Cruz Gonzáles’ Earth Songs, and Guys & Dolls: In Concert with Jeff Tyzik and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and staged readings of many, many new plays and musicals.
Gurr has served as artistic associate with Geva Theatre Center in Rochester, NY, The Theatre Building in Chicago, and Metro Theater Company in St. Louis. He has taught with and designed curriculum for the internationally recognized education department of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He graduated from and has served as guest director and faculty member at Webster University’s Conservatory of Theatre & Dance in St. Louis. Gurr’s voiceover work has included distressed dads, buttoned-up bankers, Boston Brahmins, and backwoods bloviators, to name a few.
