ACTOR BIO
Jim Blanchette is a veteran character actor and performer with over two hundred-fifty television, film, and theatre credits all across the country.
On television, 2012 found Jim recurring as the Dirt Fairy on Disney XD’s “Pair of Kings.” Other recent TV appearances include scenes with Peter Krause on “Parenthood,” Patricia Heaton and Lamorne Morris on “The Middle” and Kyra Sedgwick on “The Closer.” Jim recurred as the office punching bag Yacovetti on the second season of “The Loop” on FOX. Jim played the payroll officer in the pilot for “The Nine” starring Tim Daly. Jim appeared in a supporting role in the made-for-television movie “Jane Doe: The Wrong Face” starring Leah Thompson. Past television credits include the ABC hit “My Wife and Kids” starring Damon Wayans as well as UPN’s “Half and Half.” Jim also appeared on the critically acclaimed shows “Angel,” “Kitchen Confidential,” “Oliver Beene” and “Scrubs,” as well as recurred on “General Hospital.” In past pilot seasons, Jim appeared as a series regular in a pilot presentation of “Liquid Soap,” an improvisational soap opera presented to the FOX network by Jason Alexander’s production company Angel Ark. He has also appeared in three independent TV pilots, including “Comet Tales” for John Lant and the Little Company and “Trailer Park TV” for US Entertainment. Jim recently completed filming on the made for television movie Cupid’s Bed and Breakfast, scheduled to air on the Hallmark Channel in 2013. Jim also appeared as a soup loving lonely heart in the Web Series “Misadventures in Matchmaking,” which he also directed.
For film, Jim worked with Doris Roberts, six children and a dog to complete his scenes on the upcoming DVD release The Return of the Little Rascals directed by Alex Zamm. Jim appeared in the festival short Kerfuffle¸ which he also wrote and co-directed for Pocketful Productions. Jim had a leading role in the film comedy How to Be a Hit Man for Thanks Punk Productions. Jim appeared in Happy Holidays as a clueless clergyman. His other film credits include his starring role in the action short Selling Bait directed by Brian Brightly, a supporting role in the indie sci-fi feature Star Force and a supporting role in the festival film The Art Thief Musical directed by Linus Lau. Jim also danced his way as the title character in the festival film Twinkle Toes, with executive producer Laurence Mark, director Keith Milton, and co-star Sally Kirkland.
For the theatre, Jim recently completed a two successful runs of his play The Grass Was Never Greener, both at the Richmond Shepard Theatre in New York City and the Write Act Repertory Theatre in Los Angeles. Jim originated the role of Verhulst in the world premiere of the big budget musical Pilgrim by John Stothers at the Ricardo Montalban Theatre. No stranger to new works, Jim also originated the role of Edwin Flagg in world premiere of the musical Whatever Happened to Baby Jane at the world famous Theatre Under the Stars in Houston. Los Angeles theatre patrons might remember Jim as a delusional super-hero in The Further Adventures of Captain Neato-Man, a tyrannical farmer in Mr. Jacob’s Farm and a homicidal couch potato in Your Taxe$at Work, all at the Jewel Box Theatre. Other LA performances include the less than perfect Sperm in Colette Freedman’s Deconstructing the Torah directed by Alexander Yannis Stephano at the Odyssey Theatre, Bottom in A Midsummer’s Night Dream at Write Act Repertory Theatre as well as Queen Elizabeth II in Chuck and Di: The Tabloid Musical! at the Long Beach Playhouse. Chicago audiences may remember Jim from his long run as Vera in long running show Bitches by Sean Abley for The Factory Theatre and two completely unrelated musical versions of A Beggar’s Holiday, one an original by Mark Hollman and Chicago’s own Cardiff Giant and one production a reimagining of the Duke Ellington musical with a brand new book by Dale Wasserman.
WRITER BIO
Jim Blanchette is a prolific writer, working in many different mediums. He has written several plays concerning sensitive subject matter, including the award winning one-act play Happy Hour, a black comedy about the issue of alcoholism, which was produced by John Lant at the Write Act Theatre in Los Angeles. He recently completed a companion piece to Happy Hour entitled The Last Testament of Will, and the two plays will be presented together in an evening of theatre called The Omega Chronicles, which will be mounted at the Write Act Eastside in New York in January of 2014. In 2010 Jim wrote, produced and starred in The Grass Was Never Greener, a play about a tumultuous relationship between an agoraphobic man and the woman who takes him in. This production at Write Act NY as well as the subsequent remount at Write Act LA were greeted with enthusiastic audience response. Jim is currently adapting this work for the big screen. While in Chicago, Jim wrote the book, the lyrics and co-wrote the music for a full-length musical version of Rumplestiltskin, which had a successful run with the Papai Players. Jim also co-wrote an original adaptation of Peter Pan, which he directed in two separate productions at the Melodrama in Bakersfield, California. Two of his short plays, KABLAM!, about the cancellation of a kid’s television show, and Calling Him Out, about a man’s disastrous results in professing his homosexuality over the phone, were produced by Theatre Unleashed in Los Angeles in 2010. Jim is currently writing the screenplay for an untitled horror feature, which has already been slated for production by the Little Company for the summer of 2014. He co-wrote the spec pilot for Anonymous Confessions with John Lant, who produced and directed it. His first screenplay Locked Out, partially developed at The Little Company, is being adapted for the stage. Jim has also recently become a dramaturg, having been hired to do script work on four scripts, two of which have been mounted for production. He is also working on a series of short stories and a novel that he hopes to publish in 2015. In his spare time, Jim acts.