Daniel Cantor is an actor, director, educator, and sometimes writer who has worked in theaters across the country, on television, in commercials, independent films, and on the faculty of numerous nationally ranked theater programs.
Daniel has appeared in the films The Auteur Theory (with Natasha Lyonne), Alchemy (with Tom Cavanagh and Sarah Chalke), Justice (with Erik Paladino and Ajai Naidu), Alternative Universe: A Rescue Mission (with Steve Guttenberg and Harry Lennix), and House of Satisfaction. On television he has appeared in various guest spots including three times on Law and Order (with Sam Waterston, Linus Roache), Law and Order: CI (with Vincent D’Onofrio), Conviction (with Stephanie March), Law and Order: SVU (with Ice-T), The Sopranos (with Michael Imperioli), twice on Chicago PD (with Jason Beghe), Chicago Fire (with Eamonn Walker and Joe Minoso), Empire (with Jussie Smollett and Bre-Z), As the World Turns, Loving, Miskits (pilot), and in the South Korean TV series Asphalt Man.
Daniel was in the original Broadway cast of Tom Stoppard’s Tony Award winning Leopoldstadt, working directly with Stoppard and director Patrick Marber. Daniel has performed in the Off-Broadway productions, Things You Shouldn’t Say Past Midnight (with Jeffrey Donovan), Tuesdays with Morrie, Strictly Personal, and as Picasso in Steve Martin’s Picasso at the Lapin Agile (working with Steve Martin, Rondi Reed, and Randall Arney), when the national/Off-Broadway production moved to San Francisco. He has numerous Chicago credits including performances at the Goodman Theater (including Rabbit Hole, Fish Men, Chicago Boys, and the premiere of Goodnight, Oscar, by Doug Wright, and starring Sean Hayes), the Court Theater, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Drury Lane Theater (Boeing Boeing, with Nora Dunn, and Deathtrap for which he was nominated for a BroadwayWorld Chicago Best Actor award), Victory Gardens Theater, Silk Road Rising Theater, Next Theater, and the American Theater Company. Regionally, Daniel’s acting work includes performances at The American Conservatory Theater (as Septimus in Arcadia, for which he received a Bay Area Critics Circle Award nomination for Best Actor; Ferdinand in The Tempest with David Strathairn, Michael Tucker, Vera Farmiga, and DP Kelly; The Matchmaker with Jean Stapleton; and The Cherry Orchard), Milwaukee Repertory Theater, The Cincinnati Playhouse, The Cleveland Playhouse, The Playhouse Theater (Delaware), Arkansas Repertory Theater, The Studio Theater (D.C.), Barrington Stage Company (in My Name is Asher Lev working with Aaron Posner, and working with David Lindsay-Abaire in Wonder of the World), Hartford TheaterWorks, Contemporary American Theater Festival, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival, The Worcester Foothills Theater, The Mill Mountain Theater, and the National Shakespeare Company.
In March of 2023, Daniel directed Rock Medea, a rock n roll adaptation of Medea, which he also wrote, at Joe’s Pub in New York in March of 2023 (the piece also had performances at Smash Studios and Freddy’s in New York). Daniel has directed productions in the New York downtown comedy scene at The Westbesth Theater Center, PSNBC, Solo Arts, Stand-Up NY, as well as for the National Historic Theater. He directed site-specific productions of The Seagull, The Cherry Orchard, and Three Sisters, for a theater company he founded, The UV Theater Project, as part of artist residencies at the prestigious Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, IL. He has served as Associate or Assistant Director in productions at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and the Marriot Theater (Lincolnshire, IL) under director David Bell, and served as Assistant Director and performed the role of Vanya in a production of Uncle Vanya for the UV Theater Project at Ragdale, under director JR Sullivan. He directed a production of Prospect High: Brooklyn a Roundabout Theater original project, at the Pioneer Theater Guild (Ann Arbor, MI), which was given a rolling national premiere sponsored by the Roundabout at several youth theater companies and high schools across the country. He directed a staged reading of Death of a Salesman, starring Alec Baldwin, for the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor. Daniel has also directed multiple university productions, including at Northwestern University, University of Michigan, Wesleyan University, ACT Cabaret, the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, and the University of Massachusetts.
Daniel is the author of two screenplays, Playing Babar, and Field Trip (co-written with Mike Rubens, of The Daily Show and Full Frontal with Samantha Bee), several episodes of a TV sketch show (The Dan and Mike Show), as well as several plays including Rock Medea, his original adaptation of Medea, and two one-man comedy shows, including Pig Pile: Dan Cantor’s One Hour of Comedy Material, which was performed at StandUp NY.
Daniel is also an acting teacher and coach and currently serves on the faculty at the University of Michigan Department of Theatre and Drama where he is the Head of the BFA Acting program and teaches both acting and directing. He has formerly taught at Northwestern University, Wesleyan University, Pace University, and the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. He has also taught in his own private studio in both New York and Chicago. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University and the American Conservatory Theater.
Daniel can be contacted at (917) 806 8907, at Stewart Talent in Chicago (312) 943 3131.
