He is a stage actor with two Tony Award nominations for Eastern Standard and Our Country's Good, and frequently stars in the plays of Richard Greenberg.
Frechette first appeared on the professional stage at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as part of the Rhode Island Summer Ensemble, starring with Chel Chenier in the comedy Pontifications on Puberty and Pigtails in 1979.
He left to work in Los Angeles, but returned in 1984 to star in Bob Merrill's Musical We're Home, and again in 1987's revised production of Flora the Red Menace (he also recorded songs for the cast album).
In 1988, he returned to live in New York City to take the lead role of Drew Paley in the Off-Broadway production of Eastern Standard by Richard Greenberg, costarring Patricia Clarkson, Dylan Baker, and Kevin Conroy.
In 1992, he appeared in Bob Merrill's last Broadway musical (and cast recording) of Hannah...1939 and Larry Kramer's autobiographical The Destiny of Me.
He also appeared on Broadway in the original productions of Any Given Day (1993) and The Play's the Thing (1995), as well as the 2005 revival of The Odd Couple as Roy (and understudy for Matthew Broderick's Felix Unger).
He made guest appearances on Taxi, The Renegades, Hill Street Blues, Hotel, It's a Living, Cagney & Lacey, Matlock, and, most notably, in two episodes of L.A. Law as Christopher Appleton, an HIV-positive gay man who claimed to have killed his lover as an act of mercy because he was dying from AIDS.
Frechette was cast as one of the three leads of 1989's Dream Street, the unofficial blue-collar spin-off of Thirtysomething (it lasted 6 episodes, airing as a mid-season replacement).
A number of advertisers refused to run commercials during the broadcast, and ABC opted not to air the episode again during summer reruns (it has since returned to the syndication schedule and was released in the season three DVD box set).
The same year he appeared in the first season of Law & Order as Jack Curry in 'The Reaper's Helper", an HIV positive man committing "mercy killings" for others diagnosed with AIDS.
In 2006, he took on the substantial role of bank manager Peter Hammond in Spike Lee's heist film Inside Man.