Star Trek

When Armin Shimerman was sixteen, his family moved from New Jersey to Los Angeles, where the teenager enrolled in a drama group.  The training suited him, and after his graduation from UCLA, Shimerman was chosen as an apprentice at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre.  He went on to appear in plays at the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre, the Mark Taper Forum, and the American Shakespeare Festival.  On Broadway, Shimerman received roles in Richard Rodger’s final musical, “I Remember Mama,” as well as “Broadway,” “St. Joan” and Joseph Papp’s production of “The Threepenny Opera.”  Back in Los Angeles, his television career blossomed with recurring roles in Beauty & the Beast and Brooklyn Bridge and a variety of characters in episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation—including a Ferengi or two.  The transition to a leading role on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Quark, the most charismatic Ferengi this side of Humphrey Bogart, was a natural.  Following DS9, the actor has appeared in dozens of series, including guest shots on L.A. Law, Seinfeld, and The Practice, and recurring characters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Boston Legal.  Shimerman continues performing but makes time to teach Shakespearean techniques to students at such places as Los Angeles’ High School of the Performing Arts, the Theatricum Botanicum, the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre and UCLA, among others.  He serves as a National Board Member of the Screen Actors Guild.