CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Lewis Cleale

American actor

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 27, 2025
Entity authorityQ6536432
Source-derived summary

Lewis Cleale is an American theatre actor and singer.

Early life and education

A graduate of the University of Miami's Frost School of Music, where he has been named Distinguished Alumnus, and of the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre, Cleale's big break came when he was cast in a European tour of Oklahoma!, in which he was noticed by Mary Rodgers, who recommended him for a Los Angeles production of State Fair.

Career

Cleale made his Broadway debut in the 1995 Johnny Burke revue Swinging on a Star, for which he received a Drama Desk Award nomination as Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical. Additional Broadway credits include the 1996 revival of Once Upon a Mattress with Sarah Jessica Parker, the ill-fated 2002 Michel Legrand musical Amour, and the 2005 hit Spamalot. Cleale also appeared in the popular revue I Love New York which was done at the Rainbows and Stars room along with Bryan Batt, Janet Metz and Heather MacRae. Off-Broadway, he has appeared in Call Me Madam opposite Tyne Daly and A New Brain with Malcolm Gets and Kristin Chenoweth for Lincoln Center Theater.

From September 2008 through March 2009 and from June 2009 through March 2010, Cleale played El Gallo in the Off-Broadway revival of The Fantasticks at the Jerry Orbach Theater on 51st Street and Broadway. Cleale left that show to be an understudy for Sondheim on Sondheim. Cleale credits Sondheim as being one of the reasons he went into acting: It's Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, and I moved to New York to work with them. I was a business major in Miami when I took an acting class, and my teacher said 'I don't think you should be a lawyer.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Lewis Cleale” as american actor. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1995, 1996, 2002, 2005—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2000. The account is most persuasive where Lewis, Cleale and American can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american actor. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 27, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q6536432. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1995, 1996, 2002 and 2005.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Lewis Cleale”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Lewis Cleale primary sources, Lewis Cleale archive and Lewis research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Lewis Cleale”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Lewis Cleale” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.