About

Chris Orbach is an actor, writer, musician, singer-songwriter, and national TV and radio voiceover artist born and raised in New York City, where he trained at the High School For Performing Arts, and spent brief periods at the summer classical program at Webber-Douglas academy in London and at SUNY Purchase, before switching hats for a while and graduating with a BFA in Film and Television production from NYU’s Tisch school of the arts. 

His theatrical credits have ranged from a mustache-twirling heel in the Irish Repertory Theater’s "Peg O’ My Heart", to two roles in Richard Scheinmel’s award winning plays “Uber Mom” and “Lost In Staten Island” at La Mama, to various roles in Collective Unconscious’ hair-raising stage documentary “Charlie Victor Romeo” — a collection of re-enactments of black box recordings from doomed air flights — to a performance of his own monologue piece “Fast”, about how growing up in Chelsea in the 70’s and 80’s dovetailed into a mid-life interest in marathon running, staged at Tony Torn’s Torn Page as part of Chris’ autobiographical theater group, “Memoir Radio”. 

He performed at the Ogunquit Playhouse in the world premiere of the enchanting musical adaptation of “Mr Holland’s Opus”, directed and with a book written by the legendary multi-media star BD Wong, and music by Wayne Barker, composer of the acclaimed “Peter And The Star-Catcher.” His film and TV work includes a small part in John Gallagher’s “Blue Moon” with Rita Moreno and Ben Gazzara, and several episodes in Law and Order SVU’s first season, where he played the recurring (and then, mysteriously, vanishing) Ken Briscoe, nephew of Lenny Briscoe, the character his father, Jerry Orbach, played. He appeared both on that show and the “mothership” version of Law and Order in some scenes alongside his dad.  He also collaborated in a brief but fun web series called “Stakeout” with longtime friend Seth Gilliam, whom you may know as Father Gabriel of “The Walking Dead.” 

A self-taught childhood pianist who picked up guitar at age 21, Chris’ musical endeavors have included two albums of his original songs, “Safely Through The Night” released in 2004, and “Secession" released in 2009, plus hundreds of live performances of his music in formats ranging from solo acoustic shows, to acoustic duos with New York jazz/blues ace guitarist Stew Cutler (Chris’ longest-running musical partner), to full bands featuring talented musicians such as drummer Graham Hawthorne (who’s worked with Paul Simon, David Byrne, and Madeleine Peyroux) bassist John Montagna (who’s toured with The Alan Parsons project) and occasionally his older brother Tony Orbach, formerly of the legendary New York band Urban Blight, joining in on tenor saxophone. Chris has also performed other people’s music, singing pop, blues, and standards in combos around the tri-state area. Finding his feet as a writer, he’s started a blog called “Half Octopus”, where he hopes to showcase fiction, poetry, and commentary of his own as well as that of a few select colleagues. 

In his travels, he’s cracked jokes with Jennifer Aniston, gotten drunk with Peter Dinklage, made Al Pacino laugh, beaten James Caan at a game of 8-ball, talked with John McEnroe about guitars, had Chinese food with Tim Curry, watched Sir Robert Stephens do speeches from the Scottish Play in a restaurant in London, and listened — hunched and spellbound — in a corner of a recording studio while Sonny Rollins recorded. He has been a poet, a photographer, and a swing dancer, and has run multiple marathons. 

But of all the things he’s done and hats he’s worn, husband and father are the two he’s proudest of.  He married designer/event planner Nicole Vallance in 2011. Their son Aaron was born in 2014. Their daughter Emilia was born in 2019.  He splits his time between New York City and the Western Catskills, where he and Nicole are starting a small boutique hotel/event space as a family business. But no matter how long he lives in the country, he retains the inner tempo and sensibilities of a guy who grew up in New York City at a time when it was still gritty. After long stretches of turbulence, marriage and family have finally given him the grounding and peace that have eluded him for years, and Chris is moving happily forward as an artist and as a human.