Chris Myers on a King Lear Crash Course, Retail Hell & Being Behind Bars in Whorl Inside a Loop

Age: 27

Hometown: New York City

Current Role: Playing convicted felon Jeffrey, who is more vulnerable and shy than his fellow inmates, as well as a lisping female minister, a five-year-old boy and a certain crisply coiffed presidential candidate in Dick Scanlan and Sherie Rene Scott’s prison-set drama Whorl Inside a Loop.

Stage Cred: Myers won an Obie Award for his performance in last season’s An Octoroon. His other off-Broadway credits include Brownsville Song, Little Children Dream of God and more.

“I grew up on the Upper West Side and still live there. I was an only child with a single mom. There was a lot of empty space in my life for my imagination to keep me occupied.”

“I observed an acting class doing King Lear. The guy playing King Lear was absent, so the teacher turned to me and said, 'You’re not just going to watch—you’re going to get up here.' That was my introduction to acting; I was nine.”

“My first job was at Pinkberry in SoHo. The customers were a lot of fashion people. It was not for me. Then I worked at Converse, where the shoppers were a lot of Europeans on vacation. I couldn’t take it.”

“I was supporting myself as a DJ for a while after Juilliard. Working as an actor started to conflict with that—you can’t be in the club until four when you have an audition the next morning. I am now supporting myself solely as an actor; it's been an adjustment.”

“An Octoroon came out of nowhere for me, but it was such an important experience. It was jarring and mind-blowingly weird, but I knew I could put my heart into it. I was expecting protests outside the theater, not unanimous critical appraisal.”

“I’ve been privileged to work on some pieces that have social implications and Whorl Inside a Loop fits that pattern. I’ve taught in prisons and marched for prison reform; the themes the play is dealing with are really important to me."