Randy Harrison

Randy Harrison
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Born	Randolph Clarke Harrison

Randolph Clarke "Randy" Harrison (born November 2, 1977 in Nashua, New Hampshire) is an American television and stage actor whose best-known role is that of Justin Taylor in the 2000s television drama Queer as Folk.

Biography

Harrison was born in New Hampshire, but moved to Alpharetta, Georgia, with his family when he was eleven. He attended Pace Academy an elite, conservative private prep school in Atlanta. There he met close friend, fellow actress Marci Adilman, with whom he co-founded The Arts Bureau (tAB) [1]. His father is an executive with a large paper company, his mother a 'thwarted artist', and his only sibling is a bank manager brother [2]. He lives in Brooklyn with his two cats Ella and Aggie.

A young veteran of the stage, Harrison has acted since the age of seven. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Musical Theatre (2000) from the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music, where he starred in such productions as Hello Again, Shopping and Fucking, and Children of Eden. He received his start in theatre at Pace Academy in Atlanta, including a turn as the leading role in the school's 1992 production of Peter Pan. While at Pace, he studied acting with George Mengert and voice with Valerie Kennedy.

Harrison soon went on to perform in other theatrical venues across the U.S., playing in productions such as Violet at the Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, 1776 at the St. Louis Municipal Theatre and West Side Story at the Forestburg Playhouse, as well as productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Real Inspector Hound and A Cheever Evening.

Harrison, a gay man, made his television debut playing Justin Taylor, a gay teen, in 2000's American version of Queer as Folk, the British television series. Harrison's character comes out, pursues an intergenerational relationship, faces homophobia, recovers from a hate crime, and develops into a strong young man.

In 2002, Harrison was cast as "Sean" in a made-for-television movie entitled Bang, Bang, You're Dead, which is based on the play of the same name. In the summer of 2004, Harrison performed on Broadway as "Boq" in the musical Wicked. In July 2005, Harrison returned to theatrical acting as Alan Strang, the lead character in Equus at the Berkshire Theater Festival. He was cast in the Alabama Shakespeare Festival production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, presented by SITI Company in Spring of 2006 and returned to the Berkshire Theater Festival mainstage in July 2006's Amadeus. In early 2007, he joined the cast of the Guthrie Theater's production of The Glass Menagerie as 'Young Tom'. In July 2007, Harrison again returned to the Berkshire Theater Festival, taking the role of "Billy Bibbit" in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and in August he starred in Mrs. Warren's Profession as "Frank Gardner". He played the young "Spenser" in Christopher Marlowe's Edward the Second, in New York City in the winter of 2007-8. He is currently appearing as "Eros" in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, and will again appear this Summer at the BTF, in Waiting for Godot.

Credits

Television

• Queer as Folk (U.S. version) (2000-2005) as Justin Taylor
• Bang, Bang, You're Dead (2002) as Sean

Theater

• Hello Again
• Shopping and Fucking
• Children of Eden
• Violet
• 1776
• West Side Story
• The Real Inspector Hound
• A Cheever Evening
• Deviant (2002)
• Wicked (2004), as Boq
• Equus (2005), as Alan Strang
• A Midsummer Night's Dream (2006) as Lysander/Thisbe/Cobweb
• Amadeus (2006) as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• An Oak Tree (2006) as the father
• A Letter From Ethel Kennedy
• The Glass Menagerie (2007) as Young Tom
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (2007) as Billy Bibbit
• Mrs. Warren's Profession (2007) as Frank Gardner
• Edward the Second (2007/2008) as Young Spencer
• Antony and Cleopatra (April/May 2008) as Eros
• Waiting for Godot (Summer 2008) at Berkshire Theatre Festival