Henry Stram (born September 10, 1954) is an American actor and singer. He is the son of famous NFL coach Hank Stram.
Early life
Stram grew up in Kansas City, while his father was the coach of the Kansas City Chiefs. He performed with The Barn Players until he moved to New York City in 1973 and studied acting at the Juilliard School. While at Juilliard, he frequented Cafe La Fortuna, a cafe that opened in 1976 and was known for its garden, opera music and Italian desserts.
Career
Among Stram's stage credits are Titanic, The Crucible, The Elephant Man, and Fly by Night. Stram came under fire in 2009 while performing in the Rebecca Gilman stage adaption of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. Stram was playing a deaf character, and since he is not in real life, it was said of him, "A hearing actor playing a deaf character is tantamount to putting a white actor in blackface" by a member of the board of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts. The National Association of the Deaf, Deaf West Theater, and others demanded that the director, Doug Hughes, and the New York Theatre Workshop replace Stram with an actual deaf actor. Stram had played the role in 2005 in the premiere of the show in Atlanta.
Stram has been with actor Martin Moran since they met while rehearsing The Making of Americans together in 1985. They since have done many shows together. Moran said of their meeting in a 2006 interview, "I remember what a surprise, what a thrill it was, when the coolest actor in the group the one who'd worked with Richard Foreman and at the Guthrie and graduated from Juilliard! started walking me to my subway stop after rehearsals. That was February 1985, twenty-one Valentine Days ago. Since then, we've made a life together through the vagaries of this nutty, blessed business".
Stage credits
Broadway
Titanic (1997) – as 3rd Class Passenger/Frank Carlson/George Widener