“In terms of the goodies you get back, there’s nothing like stage,” claims Will LeBow who moved to Boston in 1977, and has never been out of work as an actor since. In fact, LeBow has not auditioned for a stage role in twenty years. 

He grew up in New York and got his start at the New York Stage Company from 1972-76, until they ran out of funding. LeBow got a job as an insurance adjuster, interviewing people under stress. “You learn a lot about how people lie, how they cover up.” 

He arrived in Boston to visit his cousin in Lexington for three weeks when he saw an ad in the Real Paper for the Boston Shakespeare Company. The troupe hired LeBow for a huge salary of $90 per week – almost enough to pay rent. He played Malvolio, Benedict, Hamlet, the Miser and, at 30 years old, King Lear. 

Part of him thought he’d go back to New York. But in 1980, he auditioned for “Sheer Madness” – where he worked for 12 years and took over as the director of the long running show which in 2006 is still going strong. He remembers the night that Mike Nichols was in town doctoring the musical “Annie” and arrived with Buck Henry. When, during the improv Q & A, Nichols asked LeBow how he cut his finger, he quickly quipped, “I punched out an orphan girl and broke her glasses!” 

In 1992, Will moved to Chicago to play in their “Sheer Madness” production – until Jan Geidt called from the American Repertory Theatre in Harvard Square. For thirteen years, he’s called ART home, playing plum roles: Marat in “Marat/Sade,” “Full Circle,” which won the Elliot Norton Award, “The Doctor’s Dilemma,” “Shlemiel, the First,” and Steve Martin’s “Picasso at the Lapin Agile.” About the tony directors with whom he’s worked: Nicholas Martin: “A joy.” Robert Brustein: “Bob has a great heart.” David Wheeler: “Why do actors love him? Because he loves actors. He doesn’t try to control, but encourages you. He looks at what you’re doing and tries to help you expand it.”  

Last year, I was lucky enough to catch him in Melinda Lopez’s world premiere of “Sonia Flew” and Nick Martin’s “The Rivals,”one of the most fun nights in the theater I’ve ever enjoyed. LeBow played Sir Anthony and agreed that it was one of the best productions he’d ever been a part of. 

LeBow was featured in local indie that I co-produced, NEXT STOP WONDERLAND, but has not been available for much film work due to his constant theater schedule. For years he enjoyed playing Stanley in the locally produced Comedy Central show “Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist.” (See IMAGINE July 1998) 

Asked about his process, LeBow says it varies as to the role. He’s currently playing Kulygin in Chekhov’s three hour plus “Three Sisters.” Last year in “Dido Queen of Carthage,” he was on stage for the first ten minutes, then had two hours to kill until curtain call. What can you do in two hours? Sometimes he’d drive ten minutes to his home. 

“It’s interesting; sometimes being home for an hour is incredibly important. One of the reasons that I’ve been able to work as long as I have and continuously is that I have a life at home that’s very important to me. I get a lot out of it. I invest a lot in my home life, my marriage. That’s the stuff that I can control, that I value maybe more than my theater work. You’re not supposed to say that.” 

Will remembers the great actor Cherry Jones speaking to students at the Harvard graduation one year. “She advised, ‘Don’t confuse your value as a person with your reviews as an actor.’ It’s not who you are. It’s somebody’s perception of the work you did that night. The neurotic actor’s handbook says you’ve got to act more than anything in the world, but my life at home is just a little more important to me. And that’s what keeps me sane and keeps me going.”