Ever wanted the opportunity to meet an Obie, Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, Ovation, Connecticut Critics Circle, and Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award winner (not to mention Tony and Drama Desk nominee)? Bid now to win a 30-minute virtual session with Kathleen Chalfant!
Known for her legendary portrayals of Vivian Bearing in WIT, Hannah Pitt and Ethel Rosenberg in the original cast of Tony Kushner’s Angel's in America, and countless film and TV roles, Mrs. Chalfant has been a figure in the industry for decades. Beyond her acting work, she has also been active as a philanthropist for the arts and professor at The New School’s graduate program. Bid for your chance to have a one-on-one meet and greet OR acting coaching session with this incredible actress today!
In a career spanning more than five decades, Kathleen Chalfant's performances on stage, screen and television have garnered her praise and acclaim from critics and audiences alike. Perhaps best known for her shattering portrayal of Vivian Bearing, a scholar battling cancer, in WIT, she received the Obie, the Drama Desk, the Lucille Lortel, the Outer Critics Circle, the Ovation, Connecticut Critics Circle, the Garland and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards for her work. This award-winning actress made her Broadway debut in Dance With Me, followed by M. Butterfly. She went on to star as Hannah Pitt and Ethel Rosenberg in the original cast of Tony Kushner’s Angel's In America, receiving nominations for both the Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award. Additionally, she is the recipient of the Obie Award for Sustained Excellence of Performance, the Drama League Distinguished Performance Award and the Sidney Kingsley Award, both for her body of work.
Among her many other performances on New York stages, Ms. Chalfant has starred in (most recently) A Woman Of The World, The Courtroom, Novenas For a Lost Hospital, For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday and Deadman's Cell Phone (both by Sarah Ruhl and both at Playwrights Horizons), Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads (another Obie), Nine Armenians, Rose and A Walk In The Woods (Drama Desk nominations for all three). Theatre audiences across the country have seen Ms. Chalfant at the McCarter, the Long Wharf, the Guthrie, Arena Stage, Yale Rep, Berkeley Rep, Hartford Stage, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Milwaukee Rep, Mark Taper Forum, Sundance, Paper Mill and others. Her film work includes appearances in Class Rank, Kinsey, Duplicity,The People Speak, Company Man, Random Hearts, Bob Roberts, A Price Above Rubies, The Last New Yorker, and Murder and Murder.
Equally at home on the “small screen,” Ms. Chalfant is most recognizable in her role as “Margaret Butler” on the Showtime series The Affair. She has had recurring roles on Doubt (starring Katherine Heigl), The Guardian (starring Simon Baker), Rescue Me (starring Dennis Leary), House of Cards, The Strain, Book of Daniel, Prince Street, The Beat and The Americans with additional appearances on New Amsterdam, Law And Order (all of them), Madame Secretary, Elementary, Spin City, L.A. Law, Good Medicine, and One Life To Live. Her movies for television include A Death in the Family (Masterpiece Theatre), Lackawanna Blues, Benjamin Franklin, Stephen King’s Storm of the Century and Georgia O'Keefe.
Kathleen is a founding member of The Women’s Project and she helped Robert Moss establish Playwrights Horizons in its home on 42nd Street in 1975. She has served on the boards of Playwrights Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, the Jenin Freedom Theatre and is currently the president of the board of Vineyard Theatre. She also serves on the boards of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids, Drugs for Neglected Diseases, and is on the advisory boards of New York Foundation for the Arts, The Rosenberg Fund, and was for 5 years on the advisory board of Doctors Without Borders. She was an Artist in Residence at the Weill College of Medicine at Cornell (2005-2006), the graduate theatre program at The New School (2011-2012), and a Beinecke Fellow at the Yale School of Drama (2006, 2008, 2010). Kathleen also participated in V-Day 2001 at Madison Square Garden and V-Day 2002 in San Francisco and Sacramento as well as the Lysistrata Project at BAM. In June 2010, she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the Cooper Union. She is on the faculty of the graduate acting program at The New School. Ms. Chalfant is originally from San Francisco and has been married to Henry for 53 years. They are the proud parents of David and Andromache and the proud grandparents of Amelia, William, and Galatea.