John Henry Roberts

After having a blast playing the title role in Nic Dimond’s smash production of Julius Caesar and Sims (“a shrewd mouthpiece”) in Shade Murray’s award-winning Detective Story, John Henry Roberts joined the ensemble in 2004, a few short months prior to the birth of his daughter, Ada Grey. (Ada, incidentally, has a blog where she writes about theatre, adagrey.blogspot.com.)

His favorite Strawdog work includes Old Times, the Good Soul of Szechuan, the Chekhov plays he worked on with Kimberly Senior, and Brian Friel’s Aristocrats, directed by Rick Snyder (for which he received a Non-Equity Jeff nomination for Actor in a Supporting Role). His own play The Sweeter Option appeared on the Strawdog MainStage in 2015.

Outside of Strawdog, he frequently works with both Lifeline Theatre (where his credits include Hunger, a world premiere adaptation by Strawdog emeritus Chris Hainsworth) and The House Theatre of Chicago (including all three parts of The Hammer Trinity), as well as Writers’ Theatre, Next Theatre (RIP), American Theater Company (RIP), Collaboraction, Theatre Oobleck, and The Neo-Futurists (where his first play, True Dreams of Annie Arbor, premiered).

He made his small screen debut on Chicago P.D. in 2014, and his big screen one in 2018, in the film Widows, directed by Steve McQueen.