Newman, Richard

Richard Newman has been making theatre for close to half a century. Born in Chicago, he has a degree from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. He trained at The American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, spent a season with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, then got his first “professional” union gig: a winter children’s theatre tour of the interior of British Columbia. It was just as icy cold as it sounds.

Though much of his professional life has been spent on stage, screen and in the recording studio, he has been a part of several musical ensembles and had a 3 year stint as the host of an Award-winning weekly Sunday morning TV show for young people on the CBC.

His love of research adds to the pleasure of playing characters based on historical personages such as Jesus, Billy The Kid, Edmund Kean, Ben Hecht, Sigmund Freud, Otto Frank and Roy Cohn among others. And he has had the great good fortune to play some of the most marvelous roles from Shakespeare: Shylock, Lear, Polonius and Claudius (in different productions), Aguecheek, Malvolio, Cassius to name a few.

The cartoon crowd will know him as the voice of Rhinox, Capt. Ginyu, Cranky Doodle Donkey, M. Bison, Franklin the Turtle’s Dad and many others. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where it hardly ever snows.