Ethan Slater

Ethan Samuel Slater (born June 2, 1992) is an American actor, singer, writer and composer, best known for his role as SpongeBob SquarePants in the musical of the same name, for which he received a Tony Award nomination and won a Drama Desk Award in 2018. During his career he has also acted in musicals directed by Kathleen Marshall, Barry Levinson, John Tartaglia, Bartlett Sher, and John Doyle. He will be portraying The Historian, Prince Herbert, and others in the upcoming revival of Monty Python’s Spamalot. Early life and career Ethan Samuel Slater was born on June 2, 1992, in Washington, D.C. He is the third child of Jay Slater, an employee at the Food and Drug Administration, and is of Jewish descent. After attending Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, his family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland. Slater's mother died when he was seven, which he describes as a "really big, formative thing in my life. She had left this huge imprint on me, even though I had so few memories." He graduated from Georgetown Day School in Washington, DC, and studied drama at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. During his time in college, he auditioned to apprentice at a Shakespeare workshop, which then got him an audition in front of director Tina Landau. Slater graduated from Vassar with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Drama in 2014. His first theater appearance was at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in July 2015, in which he starred as Luis in the musical Claudio Quest, directed by John Tartaglia, earning a nomination for the festival's award in the category for Best Individual Performance. Between September 30 and October 24, 2015, he starred in Please excuse my dear aunt Sally in the One Year Lease Theater Company. In December 2015 he joined the Delaware Theatre Company in Wilmington, acting in Barry Levinson's play Diner, directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall. During the same period he appeared in several short films, including Lightning Bugs in a Jar and Evol.