It's a known fact that actors like to talk. Stereotypically, they like to talk about themselves: about their latest endeavors, about their past performances and about their upcoming projects. Zach Grenier is a different kind of actor. He likes to talk about Ludwig Van Beethoven. The fact that he's currently playing the composer in Moisés Kaufman's brilliant play entitled 33 VARIATIONS has him talking about the play, too. It's a very special production and it's brought Jane Fonda back to Broadway after 43 years in film, television and activism. Still it is obvious that Grenier is in love with the art of acting and enjoys discussing his current project and the musical giant he portrays in it.
In 33 VARIATIONS, Grenier embodies Beethoven: the controversial personality whose symphonic work has been beloved by generation upon generation of music aficionados. Kaufman's play focuses on the last four years of the composer's peripatetic life, when he was obsessed with writing variations of a theme composed by a music publisher named Anton Diabelli. Fact and fiction are skillfully woven into the Kaufman's text as a terminally ill musicologist (Fonda) researches Beethoven's compulsion. The production leaves the audiences pondering Beethoven's genius as well as the correlations it has to its contemporary characters. As a result, it is one of the most satisfying new plays that Broadway has seen in a long while, and Grenier is proud of his association with it.
Settling down at a table in the Hotel Edison's "Polish Tearoom," Grenier proved to be genial company. An actor whose film credits include appearances in Fincher's FIGHT CLUB and ZODIAC, as well as Ang Lee's RIDE WITH THE DEVIL, Grenier has also appeared television's DEADWOOD, 24, Neil Simon's LAUGHTER ON THE 23rd FLOOR and was a series regular on C-16: FBI and TOUCHING EVIL. His theater credits include the title role in UNCLE VANYA for the Yale Rep and two outings as TARTUFFE, one for the Yale Rep and another at Princeton's McCarter Theatre. Off-Broadway, he's been seen in David Rabe's A QUESTION OF MERCY, David Hare's STUFF HAPPENS and has received Drama Desk and Drama League Awards. Recently, he appeared on Broadway with Frank Langella in A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS at the Roundabout's American Airlines Theater. By any account, it's a prestigious career.
The son of an electrical engineer, Grenier comes from a family that had great connections to the performing arts. His grandfather was an art director for Biograph Pictures at Fox Studios in the early part of the last century. All of Grenier's uncles on his father's side went into the technical side of television, but his father was the sole hold-out. The actor's grandmother, a coloratura soprano was billed as "The Singing Housewife of the Bronx" when she performed at Town Hall, but her grandson originally chose performing in a rather circuitous manner. He was interested in acting since eighth grade when his English teacher, George Faison, cast him as Henry V in a student production. "But when I went to college, I wanted to do something important and meaningful," Grenier says with his beautifully resonant voice, "I wanted to explore the human experience and do something that would benefit humanity. So I chose to study anthropology." The actor was in a total of five college productions at the University of Michigan that year and not giving full priority to his academic load when it was suggested to him that he switch to an acting school. " I looked at a career in the arts as a sort of civil service." He enrolled in an acting program on the East coast. It was there that he met his wife Lynn. "She and I have been together and fascinated by this art form ever since."
Grenier's mother's family were immigrants. "They had a very difficult life. They fled World War I and raised their children on the music of Chopin. My brother is a musicologist with a radio show on WEMU.Org. He Plays mostly jazz, but he's a classical musicologist as well. I can't wait for him to see the show."
