|
Debra
Monk co-wrote and co-starred in Pump Boys and
Dinettes (1982), and from there she went on to originate the
role of Mrs. Boyle in the romantic comedy Prelude to a Kiss
(1990) by Craig Lucas. She was the original Sarah Jane Moore in
Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's Assassins (1990), in a
production directed by Jerry Zaks at Playwrights Horizons. After
appearing in the star-studded flop Nick & Nora (1991), she
won a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performance
as Geneva in Lanford Wilson's Redwood Curtain (1993), and
the next season she received another Tony nod as Rosemary Sydney in
a revival of William Inge's Picnic. Monk also played
Joanne in the 25th Anniversary revival of Sondheim's Company (1995),
singing "The Ladies Who Lunch" in an intense rendition quite
different from La Stritch's. She
stopped the show with "Everybody's Girl" in Kander & Ebb's
Steel Pier (1997)-- which, of course, earned her another
Tony nod-- and also appeared as Essie Miller in a revival of Eugene
O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness! (1998) and as Madame Raquin in Thou
Shalt Not (2001), a flop musicalization of Emile Zola's Thérèse
Raquin by Harry Connick, Jr. Recovering from a stroke, she
went back to wow Broadway audiences as doctor in another Craig Lucas
comedy, Reckless (2004) and in the summer of 2005, appeared
opposite playwright Christopher Durang in Laughing Wild at
Boston's Huntington Theatre Company, in a production directed by
Nicholas Martin, who guided her through a strong Lincoln Center revival
of The Time of the Cuckoo by Arthur Laurents. She's currently
wowing Broadway audiences as Matron "Mama" Morton in Kander
& Ebb's Chicago. |
