Debra Monk (born February 27, 1949) is an American actress, singer, and writer, best known for her performances on the Broadway stage. She earned her first

Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual cer ...

for the 1993 production of '' Redwood Curtain'' and won an

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

for several guest appearances on ''

NYPD Blue ''NYPD Blue'' is an American police procedural television series set in New York City, exploring the struggles of the fictional 15th Precinct detective squad in Manhattan. Each episode typically intertwines several plots involving an ensemble c ...

'' between 1998 and 1999.

Life and career

Monk was born in

Middletown, Ohio Middletown is a city located in Butler and Warren counties in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio, about 35 miles (47 km) north of Cincinnati. The population as of the 2020 census was 50,987. It is part of the Cincinnati metropo ...

on February 27, 1949. She was voted "Best Personality" by her graduating class at

Wheaton High School Wheaton High School is a U.S. four-year public high school in Montgomery County, Maryland. It is located in the unincorporated Wheaton- Glenmont section of Montgomery County, near Silver Spring, about 5 miles north of Washington, D.C. The high ...

Silver Spring, Maryland Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C. Although officially unincorporated, in practice it is an edge city, with a population of 81,015 at the 2020 censu ...

. In 1973, she graduated from Frostburg State University. In 1975, Monk was awarded a

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admini ...

from

Southern Methodist University , mottoeng = "The truth will make you free" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = SACS , academic_affiliations = , religious_affiliation = United Methodist Church , president = R. Gerald Turner , prov ...

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. Monk garnered first attention in theatrical circles as one of the co-writers and co-stars of the musical ''

Pump Boys and Dinettes ''Pump Boys and Dinettes'' is a musical written by a performance group of the same name. The group, Pump Boys and Dinettes, consists of John Foley, Mark Hardwick, Debra Monk, Cass Morgan, John Schimmel and Jim Wann. The members directed and star ...

'' (1982). She won the

Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play The Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play is an honor presented at the Tony Awards, a ceremony established in 1947 as the Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre, to actresses for quality supporting roles in a Broadway play. The ...

for performance in '' Redwood Curtain'' (1993). She was nominated for a Tony Award for roles in ''

Picnic A picnic is a meal taken outdoors ( ''al fresco'') as part of an excursion, especially in scenic surroundings, such as a park, lakeside, or other place affording an interesting view, or else in conjunction with a public event such as preceding ...

'' (1994), '' Steel Pier'' (1997), and ''

Curtains A curtain is a piece of cloth or other material intended to block or obscure light, air drafts, or (in the case of a shower curtain), water. A curtain is also the movable screen or drape in a theatre that separates the stage from the auditoriu ...

'' (2007). In 2000, she won an

Obie Award The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...

for ''

The Time of the Cuckoo ''The Time of the Cuckoo'' is a play by Arthur Laurents. It focuses on the bittersweet romance between Leona Samish, a single American executive secretary vacationing in Europe and Renato Di Rossi, a shopkeeper she meets in Venice. Di Rossi, trappe ...

''. She returned to the stage in

Steppenwolf Theatre Company Steppenwolf Theatre Company is a Chicago theatre company founded in 1974 by Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, and Gary Sinise in the Unitarian church on Half Day Road in Deerfield, Illinois and is now located in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood on ...

's production of ''Visiting Edna'' by

David Rabe David William Rabe (born March 10, 1940) is an American playwright and screenwriter. He won the Tony Award for Best Play in 1972 (''Sticks and Bones'') and also received Tony award nominations for Best Play in 1974 (''In the Boom Boom Room''), 19 ...

in September 2016. Monk appeared on the

Food Channel The Food Channel (not affiliated with Food Network) is an American consumer Web site with food recipes, news, reviews and advice. The site compiles information to produce food industry trends and aims to be a gateway for all things food. Site c ...

cooking show ''

Barefoot Contessa ''Barefoot Contessa'' is an American cooking show that premiered November 30, 2002, on Food Network, and is currently the oldest show on the network's daytime schedule. Hosted by celebrity chef Ina Garten, each episode features Garten assembli ...

'', where she cooked Roasted Chicken, Arugula and Bread Salad, and Tri-Berry Crumble."Cooking for Jeffrey: Dinner Party 101, Season 12, Episode 6"
foodnetwork.com, retrieved February 5, 2018 Monk has appeared in over 30 films since the early 1990s. She made her film debut in the movie version of '' Prelude to a Kiss'', playing Aunt Dorothy. She later appeared in ''

The Bridges of Madison County ''The Bridges of Madison County'' (also published as ''Love in Black and White'') is a 1992 best-selling romance novel by American writer Robert James Waller that tells the story of a married Italian-American woman (WWII war bride) living on a ...

'' (1995) and '' The Devil's Advocate'' (1997). On television, she has won a

Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series The Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series is an award presented annually by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS). It is given in honor of an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance in a gues ...

for a

recurring role A recurring character is a fictional character, usually in a prime time TV series, who frequently appears from time to time during the series' run. Recurring characters often play major roles in more than one episode, sometimes being the main foc ...

as Katie Sipowicz in the ABC series, ''

''. She also guest-starred on ''

Law & Order ''Law & Order'' is an American police procedural and legal drama television series created by Dick Wolf and produced by Wolf Entertainment, launching the '' Law & Order'' franchise. ''Law & Order'' aired its entire run on NBC, premiering on ...

'', ''

Desperate Housewives ''Desperate Housewives'' is an American comedy-drama soap opera television series created by Marc Cherry and produced by ABC Studios and Marc Cherry, Cherry Productions. It aired for eight seasons on American Broadcasting Company, ABC from Octobe ...

'', ''

The Closer ''The Closer'' is an Television in the United States, American television police procedural starring Kyra Sedgwick as Brenda Leigh Johnson, a Los Angeles Police Department Chief of police#United States, deputy chief. A CIA-trained interrogator o ...

'', and ''

Girls A girl is a young female human, usually a child or an adolescent. When a girl becomes an adult, she is accurately described as a ''woman''. However, the term ''girl'' is also used for other meanings, including ''young woman'',Dictionary.c ...

''. Monk had recurring roles in ''

A Nero Wolfe Mystery ''Nero Wolfe'' is a television series adapted from Rex Stout's series of detective stories that aired for two seasons (2001–2002) on A&E. Set in New York City sometime in the 1940s–1950s, the stylized period drama stars Maury Chaykin as N ...

'' (2001-02), ''

Grey's Anatomy ''Grey's Anatomy'' is an American medical drama television series that premiered on March 27, 2005, on ABC as a mid-season replacement. The series focuses on the lives of surgical interns, residents, and attendings as they develop into se ...

'' (2006-11), and ''

Damages At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at ...

'' (2007-12).

Filmography

Film

Television

Stage

Broadway

* ''

'' - 1982 (also co-author and co-director) * '' Prelude to a Kiss'' - 1990 * '' Nick & Nora'' - 1991 * '' Redwood Curtain'' - 1993 -

* ''

'' - 1994 - Tony Award nomination * ''

Company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...

'' - 1995 * '' Steel Pier'' - 1997 - Tony Award nomination * ''

Ah, Wilderness! ''Ah, Wilderness!'' is a comedy by American playwright Eugene O'Neill that premiered on Broadway at the Guild Theatre on October 2, 1933. It differs from a typical O'Neill play in its happy ending for the central character, and depiction of a ...

'' - 1998 * '' Thou Shalt Not'' - 2001 * ''

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

'' - 2005 * ''

'' - 2007 - Tony Award nomination * ''

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ''Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'' is a three-act play written by Tennessee Williams. An adaptation of his 1952 short story "Three Players of a Summer Game", the play was written by him between 1953 and 1955. One of Williams's more famous works and his p ...

'' - 2012

Off-Broadway

* ''

'' -

* ''Ancestral Voices'' * ''

The Seagull ''The Seagull'' ( rus, Ча́йка, r=Cháyka, links=no) is a play by Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov, written in 1895 and first produced in 1896. ''The Seagull'' is generally considered to be the first of his four major plays. It dramatises t ...

'' * ''

Death Defying Acts ''Death Defying Acts'' is a 2007 supernatural romance film, directed by Gillian Armstrong, and starring Guy Pearce and Catherine Zeta-Jones. It concerns an episode in the life of Hungarian- American escapologist Harry Houdini at the height of ...

'' * ''Three Hotels'' * '' Oil City Symphony'' - 1986 (co-author,

Drama Desk Award The Drama Desk Award is an annual prize recognizing excellence in New York theatre. First bestowed in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award, the prize initially honored Off-Broadway productions, as well as Off-off-Broadway, and those in the vicinity. Fo ...

) * ''

Assassins An assassin is a person who commits targeted murder. Assassin may also refer to: Origin of term * Someone belonging to the medieval Persian Ismaili order of Assassins Animals and insects * Assassin bugs, a genus in the family ''Reduviida ...

'' - 1990

References

External links

* * *
archive

Star File: Debra Monk
at Broadway.com * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Monk, Debra 1949 births Living people 20th-century American actresses 21st-century American actresses Actresses from Maryland Actresses from Ohio American film actresses American musical theatre actresses American stage actresses American television actresses Tony Award winners Primetime Emmy Award winners Drama Desk Award winners Obie Award recipients People from Middletown, Ohio People from Silver Spring, Maryland Frostburg State University alumni Southern Methodist University alumni