Gordon Clapp is an award-winning actor currently living in Norwich, Vermont. He is best known for playing Detective Greg Medavoy on the TV show NYPD Blue for 12 seasons, winning an Emmy award for the role. Though he nearly didn't audition, the role of the neurotic Medavoy became hugely popular and led to Clapp's big break in Hollywood. After years of success, Clapp recently moved back to New England, and now commutes for roles while performing regularly at a local theater. He is passionate about performing a one-man show based on the poems and life of Robert Frost, which draws from Clapp's longtime obsession with the poet.

1. Meet Award-winning Actor
(You may recognize him from the TV
series Chicago Fire and NYPD Blue)
Gordon Clapp
Meet Award-winning Actor
(You may recognize him from the TV
series Chicago Fire and NYPD Blue)
Gordon Clapp
Who to Meet What to do What’s Hot
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Summer 2015
VOL. 10 NO. 2
Summer 2015
VOL. 10 NO. 2

2. 52 Upper Valley Life uppervalleylife.com
perhaps the voice, which is quiet but deliberate,
with the faintest trace of Clapp’s North Conway,
N.H., roots.
And then it might click; that inconspicu-
ous man is a famous actor. Over the course of
his 40-odd year career, Clapp has appeared in
innumerable films, television shows and theatre
productions, creating memorable characters that
resonate long after the performance.
A Fortuitous Gamble
Currently, he plays Chaplain Orlovsky on
television’s Chicago Fire, but he is perhaps best
known for his role as Detective Greg Medavoy on
the 1990s hit NYPD Blue. Clapp was originally
hired as a guest actor for a few episodes in the
first season, but his Medavoy — an endearing,
stuttering ball of neuroses — proved so popular
with the audience that he became a regular on the
program’s entire 12 seasons, and won the best sup-
porting actor Emmy in 1998.
For fans of the show, it’s impossible to imag-
ine anyone else playing Medavoy, but Clapp nearly
didn’t audition. He was due to be out of town, but
at the last minute decided to stay in Los Angeles.
That afternoon he got the call. He drove to pick up
the script late that night, but it wasn’t available, so
he didn’t get it until the next morning before the
audition.
“I was reading for two roles in episode three,”
recalls Clapp. “One was a hostage negotiator, and
it was a really intense 10-page scene. The other one
had two short little scenes with this guy in
a windy day, Gordon Clapp arrives
at the Norwich Inn. He is unas-
suming as he pours himself a cup of coffee and
greets the proprietors. With his gentle manner,
Clapp, 66, blends in perfectly with the relaxed
atmosphere. There is nothing particularly ex-
traordinary about him, and those who see Clapp
at the inn or nearby
Dan & Whit’s might
take him for just an-
other local.
Some may find
themselves searching
his everyman face,
wondering if they went
to high school with
him, or met him at
a gathering. There is
something familiar:
a look, a gesture or
After 25 years in Los Angeles, award-winning actor
Gordon Clapp recently moved to Norwich, Vt.
The New Hampshire native spoke to Jaimie Seaton
about his career, Greg Medavoy’s famous stutter, and
how Robert Frost brought him back to his roots.
By Jaimie Seaton
Photography by
Jon Gilbert Fox
› › › › ›
A Face
in the Crowd
On
Gordon Clapp currently portrays Chaplain Orlovsky on NBC’s
Chicago Fire (above). He starred as Detective Greg Medavoy in
ABC's long running drama NYPD Blue from 1993-2005 (below).

3. Actor and Norwich,Vt.,
resident Gordon Clapp
53Summer 2015uppervalleylife.com

4. 54 Upper Valley Life uppervalleylife.com
He was performing in “The Crucible” and
was backstage one night when he hap-
pened upon a copy of “The Caretaker”
by Harold Pinter.
“I was fascinated with it. It was a
whole world that I had never seen be-
cause I was reading and doing all these
old plays. It was the first time I had read
anything from the theatre of the absurd.
I thought, ‘I have to do this play’, but
I was supposed to be playing hockey. I
auditioned for the play, it was the only
time I beat David Strathairn out of a
role. I gave up hockey for that, and never
looked back.”
For the next 20 years Clapp per-
formed in and travelled between New
Hampshire, Connecticut, New York and
Canada, where he lived for a number
of years.
“I was working my butt off and it
was great,” Clapp says. “But it was time
to go to California, I was getting inter-
est from casting directors; I had worked
with some really big actors. I had an
agent out there; I was all set to go.”
After being cast opposite Farrah
Fawcett in the mini-series Small Sacri-
fices in 1989, Clapp figured it was going
to set him up, but things didn’t work out
that way.
“The next couple of years were not
easy. I was working a little bit here and
thing here so sit tight and we’ll see what
happens’. A couple of weeks later I was
over at the lot auditioning for LA Law,
and I walked onto the NYPD Blue stage
and happened to see a script for episode
five. I looked through it and found a
Medavoy scene.”
A big smile crosses the actor’s face
as he claps his hands. “Yes! That scene
established the character.”
From Farrah to Unemployment
NYPD Blue may have been Clapp’s
big break, but the actor had been honing
his craft since age 12, when he debuted
in the play Tom Sawyer in school. His
father, a colorful eccentric, recognized
something in his son and took him down
to the Eastern Slope Playhouse in North
Conway and asked the company to ap-
prentice young Gordon.
“I had acting lessons every day, and
I still remember some of the exercises.
At the end of the season they did a play
called ‘The Happy Time’ and the central
role was a 13 year old, and they gave me
the part, so I got to act
with the big boys. That
was my first professional
experience,” he says.
At that point Clapp
wanted to quit school and
go to New York to pursue
his career, but “my father
talked me off the ledge. It
was his best night. He talk-
ed about all the times he
had spent in New Hampshire when he was
younger, and how those summers meant
more to him than almost anything.”
In his junior year he entered South
Kent boarding school in Connecticut.
Though he spearheaded a couple of
productions and won the drama prize,
Clapp says that at the time he was
seriously considering a career in the
Episcopalian ministry, and he was an
avid hockey player.
By his sophomore year at Williams
College, where he befriended writer/
director John Sayles — with whom he
has made four films — and the Oscar-
nominated actor David Strathairn, Clapp
realized that his true calling was acting.
the squad room asking [Andy] Sipowicz
if he would dog sit for him.” He laughs.
“So I’m looking at these two parts and
thinking, the hostage negotiator is a
much better part, but this other guy, Me-
davoy, has a desk in the squad room, so
he might be in future episodes. I decided
to put all my eggs in the Medavoy basket.
I thought, ‘These scenes are really short
so I’m going to say everything twice.’
He’s really nervous as he’s talking to
Sipowicz.”
Clapp suddenly begins to recite the
lines, the first time saying each word
once, and then without missing a beat,
he slips into that familiar Medavoy New
York accent and does the scene again,
saying every word twice. The difference
in the two interpretations of the charac-
ter is astounding.
“As I’m walking out of the audition,
David Milch [co-creator of the show]
says, ‘I like that, you said everything
twice, that’s good, that’s funny’,”
Clapp recalls.
When Clapp got the part and was
hired for two days work, he had no idea
that the show would propel him from
respected but largely unknown actor to
a bonafide celebrity. But he did realize
that the role of Medavoy could be his
big break.
“I was so pumped. I knew it was a
great opportunity, and I swear I almost
blew it. I came that close to just being
too big. The director, Greg Hoblit, kept
coming up to me saying, ‘You’re a cop,
you can’t be that intimidated; don’t
make a big deal of the stutter’,”
Clapp says.
“When the shoot was over Greg
said, ‘I really think we may have some-
Clapp’s best supporting actor Emmy for NYPD Blue
From his home in Norwich,
Gordon Clapp commutes for
work. But he is equally proud
to be in residence at Northern
Stage in White River Junction.

5. 55Summer 2015uppervalleylife.com
› › › › ›
Clapp reads Robert Frost at home. He has been intrigued by Frost since high school.
there, collecting unemployment, and it
was starting to be a little scary. I felt like
I wasn’t the new kid in town anymore.
That time was over for me and I was
old news.”
At 42, Clapp considered moving
back to Canada, where he was continu-
ing to work periodically. That’s when he
got the call for NYPD Blue.
Coming Home
“It’s hard for people to
believe that I have really loved
being here this winter,”
says Clapp, when asked about
the transition from Tinseltown
to the Upper Valley during one
of the coldest winters on record.
Over the course of
three lengthy conversations,
it’s abundantly clear that
what matters to the actor is
the work. He tells his story
chronologically, and is just as
animated talking about the
theatre group he, Sayles and
Strathairn started after college
as he is discussing his Emmy
win or Tony nomination (for
his portrayal of Dave Moss in
the 2005 Broadway revival of
David Mamet’s “Glengarry
Glen Ross”). Clapp is soft-
spoken, and he slips into
various accents and impres-
sions as easily as slipping on
a pair of comfortable shoes.
There is not the slightest hint
of hubris or pretention; if any-
thing, he is self-deprecating.
“Ed Asner would come up
to me at events, and he didn’t
know my name but he would
say, ‘Hey, how you doin’, actor?
You’re an actor,’” Clapp says
in Asner’s iconic voice, and
his eyes light up recalling
the praise.
Despite having had great
success and being part of the
celebrity world for a time,
in his heart Clapp is simply
an actor. From his home in
Norwich, he commutes for
work and auditions for film and televi-
sion roles, but is equally proud to be
in residence at White River Junction’s
Northern Stage, where his Scrooge
in last December’s production of “A
Christmas Carol” set the boards on fire.
Life Imitating Art
But the project that is most dear
to him is his one-man show of Robert
Frost, which he’s been doing for the past
seven years. It’s an idea that had been
in Clapp’s head for 35 years before he
brought it to fruition.
“My obsession with Frost began in
high school, with the poem ‘Out, Out
—’. That poem, and some of the more
popular ones, was in my head when I
went away to boarding school. I

6. 56 Upper Valley Life uppervalleylife.com
who were students of his; they’ve said so
many amazing things to me,” Clapp says.
“One of my favorite ‘Frostaceans’, as I call
them, was a man who knew Frost at Am-
herst. He said to me, ‘It’s really important
that you’ve brought him back; I felt like I
was with Frost in the room today.’ This is
when I realized we really had something.
It’s life imitating art, coming back to
Vermont. I took Frost with me to school,
and he brought me home.” 
and then it goes another.
Two weeks after the night with
the video camera, Clapp received an
email from a friend telling him that
he came across a one-man Robert
Frost play by writer/actor A.M. Dolan.
“I read it and thought it was the
perfect starting place of what I want
to do. Dolan had cobbled a script
out of hundreds of hours of Frost’s
talks that are on audiotape. He’d put
together this wonderful piece, really
about art, fear of poetry, his process,
his love of metaphor and couplets.”
The show debuted in 2008 at the
Hanover Inn. Since then, Clapp has
done the piece 70 to 80 times, but the
most gratifying experience he’s had
with the show is when he took it to
five venues in Vermont last fall.
“It was exactly what I had
envisioned in 1978. This is so
personal to me, which is why after seven
years I’m still doing it. The most reward-
ing thing is the people who knew Frost,
wrote a term paper on him, and that was
the germination of what I’m doing now,
absolutely. Then I heard a recording of
Frost, and the voice just stayed in my
head, through college, and after college.”
After reading a three-volume biog-
raphy of the poet in 1978, Clapp decided
that he had to do something with it,
but he knew that he couldn’t afford the
rights to any of the work. Thirty years
later, Clapp turned on a video camera
one night and recorded himself as Frost
for 10 minutes.
As the actor tells the tale, he closes
his eyes and begins to recite the poem
“Design” as Frost. He doesn’t prepare;
he simply becomes Frost, speaking in a
voice that has been described as gravel
running down the cellar steps.
When asked about his seamless
transformation, Clapp says, “That’s been
there for a lo-o-o-ng time.”
With the next breath, he is Frost
once again, wittily recalling how the
reader expects the poem to go one way,
Hanover, N.H., native Jaimie Seaton has
been a journalist for 20 years. She has
contributed to and edited numerous
publications in the U.S., South Africa,
the Netherlands, Singapore and
Thailand. She reported for the Sunday
Times of London from Johannesburg,
and was the Thailand correspondent for
Newsweek magazine. Jaimie resides in
Hanover with her two children and two
dogs. She is currently working on her
first novel. For more information on her
work, visit jaimieseaton.com
Hanover, N.H., photographer Jon Gilbert
Fox has been photographing for most
of his life and half of it in New England.
His images have graced the pages of
Vermont Life, The New York Times,
the New York Post, Vogue, Kearsarge
Magazine and Upper Valley Life.
Clapp performs in the Northern Stage production of
“A Christmas Carol” last year.
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