Michael Arden

Michael Jerrod Moore (born October 6, 1982), known professionally as Michael Arden, is an American actor, singer, composer and stage director. He was born in Midland, Texas, United States.

Growing up in Midland, Texas, he was active in the Pickwick Players, Midland Community Theatre's youth performing company. He was a student at Trinity School, a college preparatory school in Midland. A Presidential Scholar in the arts, he received a scholarship to Interlochen Arts Academy as a theatre student, where he graduated in 2001. He was accepted on a full scholarship to the Juilliard School, where he was in the Drama Division's Group 34 (2001–2005). He left Juilliard in 2003 to join the Broadway revival company of the musical Big River.

Theatre

Arden made his Broadway debut as Tom Sawyer in the 2003 Roundabout and Deaf West revival of Big River. He also starred opposite John Hill in the 2004 off-Broadway show Bare, a Pop Opera. In Summer 2005, he played Nick, a sexually promiscuous gay man in love with a shark, in Adam Bock's surreal play Swimming in the Shallows at New York's Second Stage Theatre. He played the title character in Pippin for the World AIDS Day Broadway benefit concert in November 2004. He starred in the new Twyla Tharp musical The Times They Are A-Changin' based on the music of Bob Dylan. The Times ran January 25 to March 5, 2006 at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, California and then on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre from October 26, 2006 to November 19, 2006. In 2007 he starred as John Robert in Ace, at the Old Globe Theatre from January 13 to February 18. In the summer of 2007 he toured Europe with Barbra Streisand as one of her "Broadway Boys." From July to September 2010 he played the lead role in a revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Aspects of Love at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London.

Arden's regional theatre credits include Pippin, God of Vengeance, Falsettoland, Tom Jones' Harold and Maude, West Side Story, Songs for a New World, The Common Pursuit and The Winter's Tale.

Beginning in October 2014, Arden played the role of Quasimodo in the new musical The Hunchback of Notre Dame at San Diego's La Jolla Playhouse. The production ran from October 26-December 7, 2014 and at Papermill Playhouse from March 4-April 5, 2015.

Arden directed Deaf West Theatre's revival of Spring Awakening. The acclaimed production transferred from Los Angeles to Broadway, where it started previews September 8th, 2015 and opened on September 27th, 2015 at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre.On May 3, 2016 Arden received a Tony Award nomination in the category Best Direction of a Musical for his work on the Spring Awakening revival.

Arden directed the musical My Fair Lady at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, NY in August 2016. The production ran for 4 weeks.

Television

He has appeared in television on ABC's Grey's Anatomy (episode "17 Seconds" as Neal Hannigan) and in Numb3rs for CBS. He has also been seen co-starring with Donald Trump in a Domino's Pizza television commercial, and with Regis and Kelly in a 2006 Commerce Bank commercial. He was cast in the Fox show The Return of Jezebel James, which aired and was cancelled after three episodes in the spring of 2008. Arden recently had a recurring role in the NBC series Kings as Joseph, the secret boyfriend of the closeted gay heir to the throne, Prince Jack Benjamin. He also guest starred in an episode of The Closer as James Clark, a schizophrenic murder suspect, as well as guest starring in an episode of Bones as Harold Prescott. He will be starring alongside Radha Mitchell, Jeffrey Nordling, and John Heard in the new A&E drama The Quickening. Producers of The Good Wife announced in August 2011 that Arden had been cast in a recurring role as a potential love interest for the recurring character Owen Cavanaugh (Dallas Roberts). He starred in the FX series Anger Management.

Film

Having also done work in film, he is a featured actor in director Colin Spoelman's independent effort "Underground", the story of five friends who become trapped inside a cave system deep below a mountain ridge in central Kentucky. Arden's more recent work included the 2011 movie Source Code, starring Jake Gyllenhaal.

Composing and writing

As a composer, Arden has written several works, including Easter Rising, As You Like It, and Ripley.

Arden is openly gay. He got engaged to fellow Broadway and TV actor Andy Mientus on June 23, 2014. He and Andy Mientus planned proposals to each other the same day, without the other knowing. They married on August 18, 2016, at Babington House, Somerset, England.