Mark Linn-Baker

Mark Linn-Baker was born with the given names Mark Linn and the surname Baker in St. Louis, Missouri. He later changed his surname to a compound surname by hyphenating his middle name Linn with his surname Baker, producing Linn-Baker. His mother, Joan (née Sparks), was a dancer, and his father, William Nelson Baker, co-founded the Open Stage Theater in Hartford. His parents were both active in theatre and participated in civil rights activism. He graduated from Wethersfield High School in Wethersfield, Connecticut, in 1972, and from Yale University in 1976. He then attended the Yale School of Drama, receiving a MFA in Drama in 1979, and following that, found most of his early roles on stage. He developed and performed in a two-man comedy show, The Laundry Hour, with Lewis Black, in the early 1980s. He appeared in the 1983 Broadway version of the Doonesbury comic strip. He appeared in Laughter on the 23rd Floor in 1993; the 1996 revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum; the 1998 Roundabout Theatre Company production of A Flea in Her Ear; the 2003 musical A Year with Frog and Toad; and the 2006 comedy Losing Louie.