Scott Nicolai Sowers was an American actor, probably best known for his roles as Detective Parker in the late 1990s ABC series Cracker and for his role as Stanley Kowalski on stage in A Streetcar Named Desire. He established the Signature Theatre Company in 1991, and the following year he won the Drama-Logue Award for Performance for his role as the colonel in "A Few Good Men" at the Shubert Theatre. In film he has played some notable minor roles, such as a mercenary in ', a prison guard in Dead Man Walking, and a condemned man in True Grit. Aside from numerous dramatic readings for audiobooks, Sowers has also provided his voice for videogames such as ', Manhunt 2 and Homefront.
Sowers began his career as a stage actor. In 1989 New York Magazine praised his "excellent" performance as Starns in the play Heathen Valley. In 1991 he established the Signature Theater Company with James Houghton. In 1992 the Chicago Sun-Times noted Sowers' "formidable colonel" in a stage production of A Few Good Men at the Shubert Theatre. The production later went on a national tour, which won him the Drama-Logue Award for Performance. In 1996, Sowers played Will Masters on stage in a Broadway production of Bus Stop. In 2004 he played Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire at Studio 54 in New York City; the following year, John C. Reilly played the part and Sowers played the more minor part of Steve. In 2007 he appeared on Broadway in Inherit the Wind. With the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Sowers appeared in productions of Matthew and the Pastor’s Wife, Lenin’s Embalmers, Princes of Waco, Lucy and Hand to God. He has also appeared on stage in the Wilma Theater of Philadelphia, the Long Wharf Theater of New Haven, Connecticut in 2003, the Actor's Theater of Louisville, the Baltimore Center Stage, and the Oslo Festival in Norway. In September 2012 he appeared at the Valborg Theatre of Appalachian State University in Romulus Linney... Back Home in the Mountains: A Tribute to Romulus Linney.
Film and television roles
Sowers starred in the 1995 Steven Seagal film ' as one of the mercenaries, and has played detectives and police officers in various films and television series, including Cracker, where he played Detective Parker from 1997 to 1999, and a prison guard in the 1995 film Dead Man Walking. He appeared in A Season for Miracles, and several episodes of Law & Order and its spinoffs, ' and . He also made an appearance in Erin Brockovich in 2000. In 2009 he portrayed Uncle Drake in the TV series Get Hit. This was followed by a role as Joseph Earl Dinler in the Boardwalk Empire episode "Anastasia" in 2010. In 2010 he also played an unrepentant condemned man in the acclaimed Coen Brothers film True Grit opposite Jeff Bridges. In 2013 he had a minor role as Russo in an episode of the CBS series Blue Bloods.
Other work
Sowers has done dramatic readings for audiobooks, and provided voice characterization for the short documentary filmAn American Synagogue. California Bookwatch praised Sowers's "dramatic prowess which translates well to audio as he tells of a police chief forced into identifying a dead woman". In 2003 he provided the voice of Victor Zsasz for the video game , and in 2011 he provided the voice of Arnie in the videogame Homefront.
Death
On April 1, 2018, Sowers died of a heart attack at the age of 54, at a friend's home in New York City.
