On Broadway he appeared in La Bête (1991), for which he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play. Off Broadway, he won an Obie Award for his performance in Nicky Silver's play The Food Chain. He played the role of Pat Finley in the 1995 movie Heavyweights and the role of Patrick Fisher in the 2006 movie Twelve and Holding.
McGowan has been performing the role of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in various companies of Wicked since 2009. He first played the Wizard in the original Second National Tour production, beginning March 7, 2009.1 He finished with the touring company on December 6, 2009, transferring to the San Francisco production, playing the Wizard from December 22, 2009, through September 5, 2010, when the production closed. He then returned to the Second National Tour, resuming performances on January 11, 2011, and concluding his performances on the tour on April 17, 2011. McGowan joined the Broadway company of the show from May 3, 2011, through February 5, 2012.2 Thereafter, he moved to the show's First National Tour, playing the role from August 2012 through April 2013. He has since performed the role on Broadway intermittently, including from August 13, 2013, through February 22, 2014, and onward from July 15, 2014. McGowan played the role in the West End production of the show from September 21, 2015, through March 12, 2016.3
McGowan was in the 2016 Broadway revival of She Loves Me as Ladislav Sipos. McGowan played the character Falstaff in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor at San Diego's The Old Globe Theatre in August 2023.4
McGowan grew up in Belmar, New Jersey.5 He graduated from Belmar's St. Rose High School in 1977.6 Upon graduation from high school, he attended Hofstra University and the Yale School of Drama, from which he graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1988. He and his wife, Cathy, have a son, Mark (born May 5, 1992) and a daughter, Mary (born February 10, 1995).
"Dodd, Yorke, Caskey and McGowan to Star in Wicked's Second North American Tour" Archived 2009-02-12 at the Wayback Machine, playbill.com, February 9, 2009 http://www.playbill.com/news/article/126099.html ↩
"Broadway's Wicked Will Welcome Tom McGowan Beginning May 3". Archived from the original on May 4, 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110504124257/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/150400-Broadways-Wicked-Will-Welcome-Tom-McGowan-Beginning-May-3 ↩
"Tom McGowan joins the cast of Wicked from 21 Sep". Londontheatre.co.uk. Retrieved 2015-08-22. http://www.londontheatre.co.uk/londontheatre/news/ltg15/wickedtommcgowan14862.htm ↩
"Review: Old Globe's 'Merry Wives' is clever and eye-popping, but needs focus on Falstaff". 8 August 2023. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/entertainment/theater/story/2023-08-08/review-old-globes-merry-wives-is-clever-and-eye-popping-but-unfocused ↩
Marks, Peter. "On Stage, and Off", The New York Times, September 8, 1995. Accessed August 9, 2008. "Fortunately, the 36-year-old actor, a native of Belmar, N.J., needs a lot of padding on his 200-plus-pound frame to play Otto, whose eating compulsion feeds into one of the central themes of Nicky Silver's new comedy, which opened last month to largely enthusiastic reviews." https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE0DA123EF93BA3575AC0A963958260 ↩
Mann, Virginia. "PRESERVING A DISTINCTIVE NEW JERSEY FLAVOR", The Record (Bergen County), June 19, 1992. Retrieved August 9, 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20121025101450/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-22636853.html ↩
"Tom McGowan". Playbill. http://www.playbill.com/person/tom-mcgowan-vault-0000051866 ↩