Raised in Chicago, he attended the La Lumiere School, a private college preparatory boarding school in La Porte, Indiana, on scholarship, one of the first African-Americans to attend the school. He then went on to Harvard College, where he was extremely active in student musical theatre productions and the a cappella singing group the Harvard Krokodiloes. During his four years there, he wrote 16 musicals, including the annual Hasty Pudding shows. (At both La Lumiere and Harvard, Barclay was schoolmates with John Roberts, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.)
Following graduation, he worked in advertising and then moved into music video directing and production. An episode of Angel Street, a show that marked the debut of John Wells as an executive producer, began his successful career in television direction.
During the 1990s he had a long association with Steven Bochco, primarily on NYPD Blue. Together they created City of Angels, a medical drama with a predominantly African-American cast including Blair Underwood and Vivica Fox. Although the show was canceled after its second season, it won two NAACP awards.
Since that time he has directed a wide variety of one-hour television dramas. He served as a producer of the series Cold Case, of which he has also directed eight episodes. He has also been nominated for a DGA award for directing episodes of ER, House, and for three different episodes of The West Wing. Other episodes he's recently directed include Lost, CSI, Dirt and numerous episodes of The Shield.
His Harvard roommate was novelist Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha.
Before his career began as a television director, Barclay was a successful director of commercials and music videos. He created videos for Bob Dylan, New Kids on the Block, Janet Jackson and Luther Vandross, and most notably, eight videos for LL Cool J including the innovative and MTV- Award winning "Mama Said Knock You Out."
Openly gay since late in his college days, he had been a regular contributor to The Advocate for several years.
In 2001, he wrote the book, music and lyrics for the musical One Red Flower, based on the collection Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam. It has been produced in Boston, Seattle, Pittsburgh, and Washington D.C.
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