Richard Poe was born in Portola, California and later moved to his "hometown" of Pittsburg, California. He attended high school there, and then graduated from the University of San Francisco in 1967. After a stint in the army during the Vietnam War, he got his first theater job with the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, appearing in productions of St Joan, Hadrian VII, Rosencrantz and Guilderstern are Dead, and Oedipus Rex. He toured the country with Dame Judith Anderson, who played Hamlet at the age of 73 to Richard's Rosencrantz. Tour stops included Carnegie Hall and all of America's major cities. He played major roles at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, at Houston's Alley Theater, Syracuse Stage, Hartford Stage Company, Center Stage Baltimore, Goodman Theatre, Long Wharf Theater, Berkshire Theatre Festival, and Huntington Theater. He played Henry Higgins in Pygmalion opposite Roma Downey as Eliza Dolittle; George Antrobus in The Skin of Our teeth opposite Marcia Gay Harden as Sabina; with John Lithgow on Broadway in M. Butterfly; and with Kevin Dobson in ART at Chicago's Royal George Theater. He has appeared in twelve Broadway productions in his twenty years in New York City