Bill Irwin recently starred on Broadway as George in the revival of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? opposite Kathleen Turner, for which he won the 2005 Tony Award for Best Actor. Irwin also starred opposite Sally Field in another Albee play, the 2002 Tony Award-winning The Goat or Who is Sylvia.

In 2003/2004, The Signature Theatre dedicated their season entirely to Irwin's original work for which he acted as writer, director and star. Irwin was an original member of Kraken, a theatre company directed by Herbert Blau, and an original member of the Pickle Family Circus of San Francisco, where he worked with Larry Pisoni and Geoff Hoyle. He appeared as a guest with the ODC Dance Company of San Francisco, which first produced his original work. His own pieces, often developed with Doug Skinner and Michael O'Conner, include "Not Quite/New York," "The Courtroom" and "Regard of Flight" (also seen on PBS' Great Performances).

On Broadway, Irwin's original work Largely New York received five Tony Award nominations and won Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, New York Dance and Performance Awards. Irwin along with David Shiner, starred and choreographed the hit Fool Moon. Irwin also appeared with Steve Martin, Robin Williams and F. Murray Abraham in Waiting For Godot at Lincoln Center; Texts For Nothing, directed by Joe Chaikin at the Public Theatre, and in George Wolfe's park production of The Tempest. Other Broadway productions include Accidental Death of an Anarchist and 5-6-7-8 Dance!

Irwin has appeared on numerous television shows including "The Closing Ceremony Of The Summer Olympic Games" in Atlanta in which he starred as well as directed and choreographed; "Northern Exposure," "Saturday Night Live," "The Tonight Show," "The Cosby Show," HBO's "Bette Midler: Mondo Beyondo," PBS' "Great Performances 20th Anniversary Special," "Sesame Street" and Mary Chapin Carpenter's video Let Me Into Your Heart.

In 1983, Irwin was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Choreographer's Fellowship, and in 1984 was named a Guggenheim fellow and was awarded a five-year MacArthur Fellowship. In 1997, he directed and starred in his adaptation of the play Scapin at the Roundabout Theatre, and in 1998 directed A Flea in Her Ear, also at the Roundabout. In fall 2000, Irwin directed and performed his own adaptation of Samuel Beckett's prose work Texts For Nothing at the Classic Stage Company, for which he received a nomination for outstanding solo performance by the Outer Critics Circle.