David Cryer

Donald David Cryer (born March 8, 1936) is an American stage, television and film actor and singer and one of the founders of San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater which began in Pittsburgh and New York's Mirror Repertory Theatre. He may be best known for the role of Firmin in The Phantom of the Opera, which he has played for nearly 19 years on the road and on Broadway. He has also played more performances of the Bernstein Mass, as The Celebrant (including at the Metropolitan Opera and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts) and more performances as Juan Peron in Evita than any other actor. He is the father of actor Jon Cryer. Early life Cryer was born Donald David Cryer in Evanston, Illinois, the son of Pauline (née Spitler) (1910–1952) and Donald Walter Cryer (1909–1988), a well-known Methodist minister in the West Ohio Conference. At the time of his birth, his father was attending Garrett Biblical Institute at Northwestern University. He grew up in Toledo, Carey, Westerville, and Findlay, Ohio, where his father served congregations; he graduated from Findlay High School in 1954. He has three siblings: Jonathan Douglas, a retired professor of statistics and actuarial science at The University of Iowa, Daniel Walter Cryer, author of a biography of theologian Forrest Church as well as a former Newsday critic and Pulitzer Prize finalist, and Mary Kathleen (Kathy), a teacher. His mother Pauline died in 1952. His father married Mary Garrison in 1955, adding step-siblings William, Katherine, and Rebecca Garrison. He graduated from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, in 1958, with a B.A. in history with honors including the Walker Cup, given to the senior who has contributed the most to DePauw, the Gold Key awarded to juniors for leadership and scholarship, and the Lewis Sermon Award for an original sermon. He became deeply involved in music, playing trombone in the orchestra, and Ray North's dance band, and singing in The Lost Chords (a quartet modeled on The Four Freshmen), the University Choir, the Collegians, Opera Workshop, the SDX Revue, and the Monon Revue. He was president of the Student Senate and pledge trainer at Sigma Chi. Upon graduation in 1958, Cryer accepted a Rockefeller Fellowship to study for the ministry at Yale Divinity School.