Andrew Michael Mientus is an American actor, singer, composer and writer. He is best known for starring in the Broadway musicals Spring Awakening, Les Misérables, and Wicked, and on television in the NBC musical drama Smash and as Hartley Rathaway, aka the Pied Piper, in the hit CW series The Flash.
Early life
Mientus was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, son of Jean Marie and Robert J. Mientus. He is of Polish, Italian, and Irish descent. Before starting his career in theatre, Mientus was a fan of the musical Spring Awakening. After seeing the show at the Atlantic Theatre Company, he created a Facebook group for his friends and himself to discuss the show on. However, Mientus began to notice strangers were joining the group, and soon one of the producers from Spring Awakening contacted Mientus and asked him to make his group the official show Facebook page, which Mientus could moderate. He agreed, and was later recommended by the same producer to audition for the touring company of Spring Awakening. He left the University of Michigan after his junior year to be in the show, and never returned to graduate.
Career
Theater
Mientus has toured with the first national touring company of Spring Awakening as Hanschen and in the 2010/11 international tour of Academy and appeared in the 2012 Off-Broadway revival of Carrie: The Musical. He made his Broadway debut in the 2014 revival of Les Misérables as Marius Pontmercy. In February 2015, he was cast as journalist Brett Craig in Parade, for a one-night-only concert presentation at the Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. After finishing his run of Les Misérables in early 2015 and being succeeded by Chris McCarrell, Mientus moved to Los Angeles with fiancé Michael Arden, where he appeared in the show Bent at the Mark Taper Forum. He also reprised his role as Hänschen in the Deaf West production of Spring Awakening, directed by Arden. The production then transferred to Broadway, and closed on January 24, 2016. In April and May 2018, Mientus starred in the production of The Who's Tommy at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts as the title role. In an interview, Mientus stated that the classic rock score was among the music he grew up with rather than musical theater music, so he was very comfortable with the material vocally.
Television
In 2013, Mientus was cast in season two of the musical drama television series Smash as series regular Kyle Bishop. Following the cancellation of Smash, Mientus and co-stars Jeremy Jordan and Krysta Rodriguez joined the cast of Hit List, the real-world staging of the fictional rock musical created for season two of Smash. The show ran for three performances on December 8–9 at 54 Below. In 2014, Mientus appeared in several episodes of the ABC Family series Chasing Life as Jackson. That same year, he was cast in a recurring role on the CW series The Flash as the Pied Piper, having previously auditioned for the lead role of Barry Allen. Mientus made history with this role by playing the first openly gay supervillain ever. In 2017 he was cast as a series regular opposite Leven Rambin, Danny Pino and Chris Noth in Gone, a 12-episode procedural drama series for NBCUniversal International Studios, Germany's RTL and France's TF1, based on Chelsea Cain's novel One Kick. Mientus' character James Finley is a skilled hacker, who was kicked out of his home as a teenager when his family discovered he was gay. While living on the street he was abducted and later rescued by FBI Agent Frank Novak played by Chris Noth.
Writing
Mientus worked on a musical of his own with the Brooklyn-based band Teen Commandments. Songs from Burn All Night were performed for the first time at Feinstein's/54 Below in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Midtown Manhattan in August 2016. The official premiere of the musical directed by Jenny Koons and choreographed by Sam Pinkleton was on August 18, 2017 at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. On March 9, 2018 Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams, announced that Mientus has written a middle-grade fiction series called The Backstagers, based on the comics series of the same name. The first installment, The Backstagers and the Ghost Light, was published on September 25, 2018.
Personal life
Mientus has a rare neurological disorder called HNPP. During his freshman ballet class at the University of Michigan, his foot went numb and he had to pull out of the class for the remainder of the year. He was then put in a stage tech class, where he met fellow actor Darren Criss. Mientus is openly bisexual. He married actor and director Michael Arden on August 18, 2016, at Babington House, Somerset, England. He and Arden planned proposals to each other the same day, without the other knowing. They have been together since November 14, 2010. The two first met on October 26, 2006, during the opening night party of the Broadway show The Times They Are-a-Changin', in which Arden was a performer.
