Barrett Foa

At 46 years old, Barrett Foa has this physical status:

Foa has played many leading roles in plays and musicals off-Broadway, and in regional theatre. His regional credits include Sweet Charity, The Music Man, Camelot, Pirates! The Musical, The Lady in Question, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Fantasticks. His off-Broadway credits, as of February 2020, include Buyer & Cellar, The Drunken City, Godspell, and Tio Pepe (aka Somewhere).

Foa got his break playing Jesus in the 2000 off-Broadway revival of the musical Godspell for the 30th anniversary. He is on the cast album as well. His Broadway theatre debut was in 2001 as a cast member in the original production of Mamma Mia!, a musical based on 22 pop songs of ABBA. After months with the show, Foa left to accept a three-month job at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, California, where he created the lead role in a musical called Kept with music by Henry Kreiger and lyrics by Bill Russell.

After playing Matt in The Fantasticks at The Muny in St. Louis, Foa was picked to play Claudio in a dual production of Much Ado About Nothing at Hartford Stage and the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. In 2003 Foa was in the Cupid and Psyche-inspired four person, Off-broadway show of the same name which was also an updated Greek mythology and comedy. He was also in the musical Camelot as the evil Mordred portrayed with a thick Scottish burr who is a punk bastard.

Foa has performed on Broadway hundreds of times over a ten-year span; in the mid-2000s as Princeton and Rod in Avenue Q, and then was offered the role of Leaf Coneybear in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. He was the first actor cast in Avenue Q who had not been a puppeteer first, “It was a bit of a scary experience going into a room full of puppeteers and saying: ‘I'm going to be your new lead.’ They put me into an intensive two-day course and I proved at the audition I could fit in with everyone else. I got to be the understudy for a year”. He took over a lead role in Avenue Q in 2005, and in 2006, a lead in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

He played his last performance as Frederic in Pirates! an updated version of The Pirates of Penzance, on July 8, 2007, at the Paper Mill Playhouse. He played Karel in The Lady In Question, a play by and starring Charles Busch from August 14 through September 2, 2007.

From March 13 to April 20, 2008, he played Eddie in The Drunken City at Playwrights Horizons. He also played Tu-Ping in a workshop presentation of The Nightingale with music by Duncan Sheik and book and lyrics by Steven Sater at the New York Theatre Workshop directed by James Lapine.

In May 2008, he played Jordy in a workshop of Giant, a new musical with music and lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa and book by Sybille Pearson, based on the Edna Ferber novel and the movie with Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, and James Dean.

He had established himself on Broadway, and then took some friends’ advice and moved to Los Angeles in the late 2000s to pursue television work. He soon picked up cameo and supporting roles in Numb3rs, The Closer, and HBO's Entourage.

From 2009 to 2021, Foa has portrayed Eric Beale, a computer, and technology “wizard” on the military police procedural show about the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, NCIS: Los Angeles. It was the first spin-off of NCIS, at the time the second most popular show in the country. The show is a procedural crime drama, but coupled with a “kind of a workplace comedy going on”. He auditioned for an operational psychologist character but the producers wrote the Beale part for him instead. It was his first stable job in his life with a ten-months a year, 9-5p schedule. His recurring role in NCIS: Los Angeles was upgraded to a series regular in the middle of the first season after twelve episodes. In April 2011 his character, in a series first, switched from his station in the operations center—and his casual surf wear—to do field work including using a gun. In May 2021, after the season finale of NCIS: LA, Foa announced that he is letting go from the series after twelve seasons.

Foa continues to do live performing in addition to his television work, “I'm used to having a live connection with an audience on a stage, and also after the show. ... There's more of an immediate personal touch.” In January 2011, Foa headlined the musical stage show Sincerely, John Hughes, a tribute to the films and soundtracks of film director John Hughes. Foa is co-writer, producer and star of "For The Record: John Hughes," a live musical event featuring scenes and songs from the movies of the 1980s film director; it played multiple sold-out runs in LA and NYC.

In Summer 2012 he bought a $1.4 million two-bedroom “architectural residence” above the Sunset Strip, he sold it a year later for almost $1.7 million.

In July 2013, Foa played Harold Hill, the lead in the musical The Music Man, staged by the Connecticut Repertory Theatre. From May to August 2014, Foa played the lead in Jonathan Tolins’ one-man off-Broadway comedy Buyer & Cellar about an actor who manages a basement mall in Barbra Streisand's home. Her Malibu home's basement has a mall of quaint shops, “purely for her own amusement” built to house her extensive collections.

For NCIS: Los Angeles’ seventh season (2015-6), Foa's character, usually seen at headquarters, is trained for field work, including weapons handling. In May 2016 Foa bought a three-story, two-bedroom contemporary home in Silver Lake for $1.35 million.

In early 2019, Foa did a guest-arc cameo on Will & Grace as Will's love interest—and fellow teacher. In May 2019 he bought a $2.1 million 1950s three-bedroom ranch-style home in the foothills above Beachwood Canyon.

In 2019 he was given a leave of absence from NCIS so he did not have to commute from St. Louis, Missouri where he was playing Prior Walter, the lead in Tony Kushner's two-act, seven-hour play Angels in America. In February 2020 Foa led a cabaret benefit night, “Barrett Foa Has Friends!”, for the LA-based PAWS which aids people with chronic diseases care for their pets.

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