Brian Charles Rooney is an American actor and singer. Technically a sopranist[1] (sopranista or male soprano), he has also sung high tenor roles in theatrical productions in the United States, Canada, and Europe.[2][non-primary source needed]
He made his Broadway debut in The Roundabout Theatre Company's 2006 revival of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera in the role of Lucy Brown.[3][4][5]
As a tenor, he played Tony on a European tour of the American musical West Side Story.[6] He has been featured in musical and non-musical theatrical productions in such cities as San Francisco, Miami, San Diego, Los Angeles, and Dallas. He has been a featured soloist with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and the Oregon Symphony Orchestra.[6]
In 2013, as a pop-rock singer-songwriter, he began performing original material in concert venues in New York City.[7] His collaborator is Paul Leschen, composer and arranger for the rock-band, The Scissor Sisters.[8] Rooney's recent ventures in concert performance and production in New York City have been greeted positively.[9]
Rooney starred as General George B. McClellan in the 2014 New York Musical Theatre Festival production of Bayonets of Angst, a bluegrass musical comedy about the Civil War.[10] He was awarded a New York Musical Theatre Festival Award for Excellence for "Outstanding Individual Performance".[11]
In 2007, Rooney was awarded the Lys Symonette Award for Outstanding Dramatic Excellence by the Kurt Weill Foundation.[12][13]