Bio

Chris Myers is an actor, teaching artist, and cultural worker born and based in New York City. His work, across mediums and sectors, is motivated by the belief that creative production and cultural engagement can elevate the best parts of our humanity, fortifying us to build the people-centered communities we so desperately need. 

Portraying a wide array of characters across both new plays and classics, he is the recipient of an Obie Award for his performance in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins “An Octoroon” which TheaterMania noted as “a tour de force.” The New York Times listed his performance in “Whorl Inside a Loop” as one of the best stage moments of the year, with the NY Post calling it “extraordinary.” Following that production, in a review of MCC’s “BLKS” Helen Shaw of Time Out New York remarked that “Myers can truly do anything.” On stage, Chris has acted opposite industry icons including Mary Lousie Parker (Tony-nominated “How I Learned to Drive”), Matthew Broderick (“Babbitt”), Tom Hanks, and Joe Morton (“Henry IV Parts 1 & 2”) at leading theater venues. On screen, he has acted opposite Giovanni Ribisi (“Sneaky Pete”), Christine Baranski (“The Good Fight”), Dennis Quaid (“Merry Happy Whatever)”, and under the direction of Spike Lee (“She’s Gotta Have It”). 

He studied acting at The Juilliard School, LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts, the British American Drama Academy, and the Harlem School for the Arts, where he was also Artist-In-Residence.

Teaching artistry has always been an instrumental aspect of his creative practice. While he has maintained a private coaching practice that has helped actors from marginalized backgrounds gain acceptance into top acting conservatories, much of his teaching work has been more explicitly grounded in social justice. He has volunteered with youth both incarcerated (with Drama Club NYC) and from under-resourced communities (Northside Center, PLOT mentorship program). He’s also given guest and master classes at Classical Theater of Harlem’s Actors Advocate, LaGuardia High School, and Epic Theater Company.  

Cultural Work is the means by which Chris is most free to explore the possibilities for the new ways of relating at the heart of his creative mission. In 2017 he co-founded Interfest, a free three-day ‘arts & ideas festival for Black liberationists’ that, among other achievements, was the incubator for The Movement Theater Company’s acclaimed production of “What to Send Up When It Goes Down” and featured an opening plenary with adrienne maree brown. Later, in the heat of the pandemic, he founded Anticapitalism for Artists, which in its four year tenure offered free political education to over 1,500 artists of all backgrounds, including talks with artists like Boots Riley. “A4A” received an organizational Obie Award and influenced the groundbreaking Project Number One initiative at Soho Rep Theater. 

His cultural work has also led him to be one of the Think Tank members which helped design Creatives Rebuild New York’s $43 million dollar Guaranteed Income program. He has been honored as a New Yorkers for Culture and Arts residency and with the CUNY Segal Center Award for Civic Engagement in the Arts. He has given talks, workshops, or sat on panels at the Park Ave Armory, New Museum/New Inc, Chicago BIG conference, NYU Skirball, 24 Hour Plays National, Ithaca College Theatre, Soho Rep, Beehive Dramaturgy, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, New Economy Coalition, and more. His writing on cultural work and political education has been published twice in HowlRound, as well as in print for American Theater Magazine. 

Through the years Chris has produced self-funded original work. Among the projects are two short films: Post-Emma and The Interruption, as well as the half hour comedy pilot, GUAP, a ‘comedy about gentrification’ which raised over $23,000 on Kickstarter as a featured project and garnered press in Vibe, IndieWire, Curbed, and others.