Jay O. Sanders ’76
In the summer of ’76, Jay O. Sanders landed roles in The Public Theatre’s Shakespeare in the Park productions of Henry V and Measure for Measure alongside Meryl Streep, William Hurt, and Sam Waterston.
He then left New York in search of a company experience but eventually returned to “be part of the floating company that is New York actors.” While appearing in Buried Child, Sam Shepard’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play in 1978, he landed a role in the film Starting Over, starring the era’s megastar Burt Reynolds.
The gig coincided perfectly with a gap in Sanders’ schedule created by the move of Buried Child from off-off-Broadway to off-Broadway. That decision precipitated a career notable for its balance between film and television work and roles in theatre.
Sanders’ vast film and television credits span decades and genres, including Kiss the Girls, JFK, The Day After Tomorrow, Revolutionary Road, Roseanne, Northern Exposure, Law and Order, True Detective, and The Sinner. He’s also done voice acting for the video game Red Dead Redemption.
But it’s all a means to a theatre end. A regular at The Public Theatre for his entire career, including several appearances with Shakespeare in the Park (rumor is he’s appeared in the most productions of any actor), he made his Broadway debut in Loose Ends in 1979, won an Obie and Drama Desk Award for Sweet and Sad in 2012, and a Drama Desk Award for the title role in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya directed by Richard Nelson.
Friends with Nelson since 1977, they’ve also worked together on the Chekhov-inspired Apple Family and Gabriel Family plays, which toured around the world. In April 2020, with the pandemic in full swing, Nelson wrote a new play in the Apple Family cycle, What Do We Need to Talk About?, which starred Sanders (and his wife Marianne Plunkett, with whom he often works). The first play written for virtual theatre, its success led to two more. Even a global pandemic couldn’t dampen Sanders’ passion for relevant storytelling.
