John de Lancie

Film and TV career

Stage

De Lancie is a former member of the American Shakespeare Festival, the Seattle Repertory Company, South Coast Repertory, the Mark Taper Forum, and the Old Globe (where he performed Arthur Miller's Resurrection Blues).^[15][16][17] He performed and directed for L.A. Theatre Works, the producing arm of KCRW-FM and National Public Radio where the series The Play's the Thing originated.^[17][10]

In the touring company Star Trek: The Music, De Lancie co-hosted and appeared with Robert Picardo (who portrayed the Doctor in Star Trek: Voyager). De Lancie and Picardo narrate around the orchestral performance, explaining the history of the music in Star Trek.^[10] He performed Pierre Curie in Alan Alda's play Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie in 2001 at the Geffen Theater in Los Angeles.^[18] De Lancie hosted the children's concerts at Walt Disney Concert Hall during the 2003–04 season; in 2005, he hosted the children's series of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.^[19]

Voice acting

Known for his distinctive speaking style, de Lancie lent his voice to a number of projects. In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, he voiced Discord, a recurring character. Discord was inspired by Q as an omnipotent being who embodies mischief and chaos, but is genuinely good-hearted and is occasionally helpful to the heroes of the show;^{[citation needed]} another connection to Q is that Discord often uses fewer contractions in his vocabulary.^{[citation needed]} Discord is best described as an anti-hero, also similar to Q. Initially, Lauren Faust wanted to cast someone who could impersonate de Lancie, but Hasbro suggested casting de Lancie himself. Ironically, de Lancie has stated in an interview that, in preparation for his role as Discord, he did not draw from his past experience as Q.^[20] De Lancie mentioned during a 2013 convention panel that his voice recordings of Discord are slightly sped up and lose their deep bass sound. Nevertheless, fans still praised de Lancie for his performance.^[21] According to Jim Miller in The Art of Equestria, de Lancie's sessions are always done by phone, but his first session as Discord was videotaped.

His other animated television roles included The Angry Beavers, Extreme Ghostbusters, Invader Zim, Duck Dodgers, Max Steel, Duckman, Young Justice,^[15] and DC Super Hero Girls as Mr. Freeze.^[22]

Writing

De Lancie co-wrote the Star Trek novel I, Q with Peter David, as well as co-writing the novel Soldier of Light (with Tom Cool).^[23] He wrote the DC comic book story The Gift.^[24] In 1996, along with Leonard Nimoy and writer-producer Nat Segaloff, de Lancie formed and recorded Alien Voices, a collection of audio dramas based on classic science fiction and fantasy stories, such as The Time Machine and The Lost World.^[10]

Music

De Lancie has performed as narrator with a number of major orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic,^[15] the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra^[16][17] and Symphony Nova Scotia.^[25] He provided the narration for the world premiere of Lorenzo Palomo's The Sneetches and Other Stories (based on the book by Dr. Seuss) with the Oberlin Conservatory Orchestra.^[26][27] He wrote and directed ten symphonic plays, which were produced with the Milwaukee, St. Paul Chamber, Ravinia, Los Angeles, and Pasadena Orchestras.^[17]

De Lancie was the writer, director and host of First Nights, an adult concert series at the Walt Disney Concert Hall with the Los Angeles Philharmonic,^[16][17] based loosely on the book of the same name by Thomas Forrest Kelly, which explored the life and music of Stravinsky, Beethoven, Mahler, Schumann, and Prokofiev. In 2006, de Lancie made his opera directorial debut with the Atlanta Opera performing Puccini's "Tosca" from May 18–21.^{[17][dead link][citation needed]}

In September 2019, de Lancie narrated as "Forever of the Stars" in the first ever live performances of Ayreon's Sci-Fi concept album Into the Electric Castle.^[28]

Documentary

While on stage at the 2012 Ottawa ComicCon, de Lancie announced that he had made plans to co-produce a documentary about "bronies" (older, usually male teenage and adult fans of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic). He said he was taken aback by how disrespectfully national news media portrayed the brony fandom.^[29] He started a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the documentary, since titled Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony.^[30] The campaign began on May 13, 2012, and by June 10 had reached $322,022, becoming Kickstarter's second-highest funded film project of all time.^[30]

Film

Television

Video games

Podcast series