Donna Murphy
Encyclopedia
Donna Murphy is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 stage, film, television actress
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

 and singer
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...

.

Murphy has won two Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

s for Best Actress in a Musical for her roles in Passion
Passion (musical)
Passion is a musical adapted from Ettore Scola's film Passione d'Amore . The book is by James Lapine, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Central subjects include obsession, beauty, power, manipulation, passion, illness, and love...

as Fosca and in The King and I
The King and I
The King and I is a stage musical, the fifth by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The work is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon and derives from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in...

as Anna Leonowens
Anna Leonowens
Anna Leonowens was an English travel writer, educator, and social activist. She worked in Siam from 1862 to 1868, where she taught the wives and children of Mongkut, king of Siam. She also co-founded the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design...

. She received three more Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 nominations for Best Actress in a Musical for her performances in Wonderful Town
Wonderful Town
Wonderful Town is a musical with a book written by Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Leonard Bernstein...

as Ruth Sherwood, LoveMusik
LoveMusik
LoveMusik is a musical written by Alfred Uhry, using a selection of music by Kurt Weill. The story explores the romance and lives of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, based on Speak Low : The Letters of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, edited and translated by Lys Symonette & Kim H. Kowalke. Harold Prince...

as Lotte Lenya
Lotte Lenya
Lotte Lenya was an Austrian singer, diseuse, and actress. In the German-speaking and classical music world she is best remembered for her performances of the songs of her husband, Kurt Weill. In English-language film she is remembered for her Academy Award-nominated role in The Roman Spring of Mrs...

 and The People in the Picture
The People in the Picture
The People in the Picture is a musical with book and lyrics by Iris Rainer Dart and music by Mike Stoller and Artie Butler. The musical is about a grandmother recalling her life in the Yiddish theater and the Holocaust.-Production:...

as Raisel/Bubbie.

She is known, most recently, for her role as Mother Gothel in the animated Disney film Tangled (2010), Anij, Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Jean-Luc Picard
Captain Jean-Luc Picard is a Star Trek character portrayed by Patrick Stewart. He appears in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and the feature films Star Trek Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek Nemesis...

's love interest, in Star Trek: Insurrection
Star Trek: Insurrection
Star Trek: Insurrection is a 1998 American science fiction film directed by Jonathan Frakes, written by Michael Piller , and with music composed by Jerry Goldsmith. It is the ninth film in the Star Trek franchise, and the third to feature the cast from the television series Star Trek: The Next...

(1998) and her numerous stage roles in musical theatre
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

.

Personal life

Murphy, the eldest of seven children, was born in Corona, Queens
Corona, Queens
Corona is a densely-populated neighborhood in the former Township of Newtown in the borough of Queens in New York City, New York, United States...

, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, the daughter of Lucinda (née
Married and maiden names
A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....

 Fink) and Robert Murphy, an aerospace engineer. Murphy is of Irish, French, German, and Czech ancestry. Her family moved to Hauppauge
Hauppauge, New York
Hauppauge is a hamlet and CDP in the Town of Islip and the Town of Smithtown in Suffolk County, New York, United States. The population of the CDP was 20,100 at the time of the 2000 census....

, Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

, New York. At age three, she asked for voice lessons
Vocal pedagogy
Vocal pedagogy is the study of the art and science of voice instruction. It is used in the teaching of singing and assists in defining what singing is, how singing works, and how proper singing technique is accomplished....

, and she put on shows as a child in Hauppauge. She later moved to Topsfield, Massachusetts
Topsfield, Massachusetts
Topsfield is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 6,085 at the 2010 census.Part of the town comprises the census-designated place of Topsfield.-Colonial period:...

 and graduated from Masconomet Regional High School
Masconomet Regional High School
Masconomet Regional High School is located in Topsfield, Massachusetts, and serves the towns of Boxford, Middleton and Topsfield.Masconomet Regional Middle School serves grades 7 and 8 while the Masconomet Regional High School serves grades 9 through 12. Both schools are located on the same property...

 in 1977.

Murphy has been married to actor and singer Shawn Elliott since 1990. She is the stepmother of Elliott's two daughters. In 2005, they adopted a daughter from Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...

, Darmia Hope.

Career

Murphy dropped out of the New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

 drama program in her sophomore year when she was cast to understudy the three backup singers in the 1979 Broadway musical They're Playing Our Song
They're Playing Our Song
They're Playing Our Song is a musical with a book by Neil Simon, lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager, and music by Marvin Hamlisch.In a story based on the real-life relationship of Hamlisch and Sager, a wisecracking composer finds a new, offbeat lyricist, but initially the match is not one made in heaven...

. In a 2007 interview, Murphy explained, "At the end of my sophomore year, I took a leave of absence. I needed to audition without cutting classes." She also studied at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.

She appeared in many Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

 productions, including the musical Francis in 1981 at the York Theatre
York Theatre
The York Theatre is an Off-Broadway theatre at 619 Lexington Avenue at the corner of 54th Street in the East Midtown section of Manhattan, New York City. It is dedicated to the production of new musicals and concert productions of forgotten musicals from the past. Each season consists of three or...

 at St. Peter's, The Mystery of Edwin Drood
The Mystery of Edwin Drood (musical)
Drood is a musical based on the unfinished Charles Dickens novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood. It is written by Rupert Holmes, and was the first Broadway musical with multiple endings . Holmes received Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Original Score...

in 1985 at the Public Theater
Public Theater
The Public Theater is a New York City arts organization founded as The Shakespeare Workshop in 1954 by Joseph Papp, with the intention of showcasing the works of up-and-coming playwrights and performers. It is headquartered at 425 Lafayette Street in the former Astor Library in the East Village...

's Delacorte Theatre, Birds of Paradise
Birds of Paradise (musical)
Birds of Paradise is a musical with music by David Evans, lyrics by Winnie Holzman, and the book by Evans and Holzman. It had a brief run Off-Broadway in 1987...

in 1987 (Promenade Theatre), Privates on Parade
Privates on Parade
Privates on Parade: A Play with Songs in Two Acts is a 1977 farce by English playwright Peter Nichols , with music by Denis King.-Plot:...

(Roundabout Theatre) in 1989, the musical Song of Singapore in 1991, the Michael John LaChiusa
Michael John LaChiusa
Michael John LaChiusa is an American musical theatre and opera composer, lyricist, and librettist. He is best known for complex, musically challenging shows such as Hello Again, Marie Christine, The Wild Party, and See What I Wanna See...

 musical Hello Again
Hello Again
Hello Again may refer to the following:* "Hello Again", a song by Neil Diamond from the 1980 The Jazz Singer * "Hello Again" , a song by The Cars from the 1984 album Heartbeat City...

at the Lincoln Center Mitzi Newhouse Theatre in 1993, Twelve Dreams at the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre in 1995, and Helen at the Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival in 2002.

On Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

, after They're Playing Our Song (1979), she was an understudy in the musical/opera The Human Comedy
The Human Comedy (musical)
The Human Comedy is a musical with a book and lyrics by William Dumaresq and music by Galt MacDermot.William Saroyan's tale originated as a screenplay he had been hired to write and direct for MGM...

in April 1984 and played various roles in The Mystery of Edwin Drood
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
The Mystery of Edwin Drood is the final novel by Charles Dickens. The novel was left unfinished at the time of Dickens' death, and his intended ending for it remains unknown. Though the novel is named after the character Edwin Drood, the story focuses on Drood's uncle, choirmaster John Jasper, who...

from 1985 to 1987. She also played Audrey in Howard Ashman
Howard Ashman
Howard Elliott Ashman was an American playwright and lyricist. Ashman first studied at Boston University and Goddard College and then went on to achieve his master's degree from Indiana University in 1974...

 and Alan Menken
Alan Menken
Alan Menken is an American musical theatre and film composer and pianist.Menken is best known for his numerous scores for films produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. His scores for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Pocahontas have each won him two Academy Awards...

's Little Shop of Horrors
Little Shop of Horrors (musical)
Little Shop of Horrors is a rock musical, by composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman, about a hapless florist shop worker who raises a plant that feeds on human blood. The musical is based on the low-budget 1960 black comedy film The Little Shop of Horrors, directed by Roger Corman...

.
In 1994, she played the role of Fosca in Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...

's and James Lapine
James Lapine
James Lapine is an American stage director and librettist. He has won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical three times, for Into the Woods, Falsettos, and Passion. He has frequently collaborated with Stephen Sondheim and William Finn.-Biography:Lapine was born in Mansfield, Ohio and graduated...

's Passion
Passion (musical)
Passion is a musical adapted from Ettore Scola's film Passione d'Amore . The book is by James Lapine, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Central subjects include obsession, beauty, power, manipulation, passion, illness, and love...

, winning the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance. In 1996, she played Anna Leonowens
Anna Leonowens
Anna Leonowens was an English travel writer, educator, and social activist. She worked in Siam from 1862 to 1868, where she taught the wives and children of Mongkut, king of Siam. She also co-founded the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design...

 in the revival of The King and I
The King and I
The King and I is a stage musical, the fifth by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The work is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon and derives from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in...

alongside Lou Diamond Philips. The role earned her a second Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. She appeared as Ruth Sherwood in a revival of Wonderful Town
Wonderful Town
Wonderful Town is a musical with a book written by Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Leonard Bernstein...

from 2003 to 2005 (having previously performed in the New York City Center
New York City Center
New York City Center is a 2,750-seat Moorish Revival theater located at 131 West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues in Manhattan, New York City. It is one block south of Carnegie Hall...

 Encores!
Encores!
Encores! Great American Musicals in Concert is a program that has been presented by New York City Center since 1994. Encores! is dedicated to performing the full score of musicals that rarely are heard in New York City...

 2000 staged concert of that musical), and was nominated for the Tony Award, Best Actress in a Musical and won the Drama Desk Award
Drama Desk Award
The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...

 for Outstanding Actress in a Musical. In 2007, she appeared in LoveMusik
LoveMusik
LoveMusik is a musical written by Alfred Uhry, using a selection of music by Kurt Weill. The story explores the romance and lives of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, based on Speak Low : The Letters of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, edited and translated by Lys Symonette & Kim H. Kowalke. Harold Prince...

as Lotte Lenya
Lotte Lenya
Lotte Lenya was an Austrian singer, diseuse, and actress. In the German-speaking and classical music world she is best remembered for her performances of the songs of her husband, Kurt Weill. In English-language film she is remembered for her Academy Award-nominated role in The Roman Spring of Mrs...

, opposite Michael Cerveris
Michael Cerveris
Michael Cerveris is an American singer, guitarist and actor. He has performed in many stage musicals and plays, including in several Stephen Sondheim musicals: Assassins, Sweeney Todd, Road Show, and Passion...

 as Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...

, receiving nominations for Tony and Drama Desk Awards. She appeared in the 2007 New York City Center Encores!
Encores!
Encores! Great American Musicals in Concert is a program that has been presented by New York City Center since 1994. Encores! is dedicated to performing the full score of musicals that rarely are heard in New York City...

 staged concert of Follies
Follies
Follies is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman. The story concerns a reunion in a crumbling Broadway theatre, scheduled for demolition, of the past performers of the "Weismann's Follies," a musical revue , that played in that theatre between the World Wars...

as Phyllis. She is appearing in the Roundabout Theatre production of a new musical, The People in the Picture
The People in the Picture
The People in the Picture is a musical with book and lyrics by Iris Rainer Dart and music by Mike Stoller and Artie Butler. The musical is about a grandmother recalling her life in the Yiddish theater and the Holocaust.-Production:...

, which opened on April 28, 2011 and is closing on June 19, 2011. She was nominated for a 2011 Tony Award for Leading Actress in a Musical for her role in the production.

Murphy's film roles include, most recently, the role of Mother Gothel in the animated musical film
Musical film
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...

 Tangled (2010). She also has appeared as Anij, Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Jean-Luc Picard
Captain Jean-Luc Picard is a Star Trek character portrayed by Patrick Stewart. He appears in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and the feature films Star Trek Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek Nemesis...

's love interest, in Star Trek: Insurrection
Star Trek: Insurrection
Star Trek: Insurrection is a 1998 American science fiction film directed by Jonathan Frakes, written by Michael Piller , and with music composed by Jerry Goldsmith. It is the ninth film in the Star Trek franchise, and the third to feature the cast from the television series Star Trek: The Next...

(1998), Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson is an American actress, model and singer.Johansson made her film debut in North and was later nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead for her performance in Manny & Lo . She rose to further prominence with her roles in The Horse Whisperer and Ghost World...

's mother in The Nanny Diaries
The Nanny Diaries (film)
The Nanny Diaries is a 2007 American comedy-drama film, based on the novel of the same name by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. Written and directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, it stars Scarlett Johansson, Alicia Keys, Paul Giamatti, and Laura Linney; and was produced by Richard N...

and Rosalie Octavius, wife of Dr. Otto Octavius
Doctor Octopus
Doctor Octopus is a fictional character, a supervillain that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics since 1963. A highly intelligent mad scientist, Doctor Octopus is one of Spider-Man's greatest foes...

, the film's villain, in Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man 2 is a 2004 American superhero film directed by Sam Raimi, written by Alvin Sargent and developed by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, and Michael Chabon. It is the second film in the Spider-Man film franchise based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Spider-Man...

(2004). She appeared in the film Center Stage
Center Stage
Center Stage is a 2000 American drama film, directed by Nicholas Hytner, about a group of young dancers from various backgrounds who enroll at the fictitious American Ballet Academy in New York City...

as a ballet teacher in 2000 and in Darren Aronofsky's 2006 film The Fountain
The Fountain
The Fountain is a 2006 American romantic drama film, which blends elements of fantasy, history, religion, and science fiction. It was directed by Darren Aronofsky, and starred Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz...

as Betty, a surgical research assistant.

On television, Murphy has appeared in the NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...

 Another World
Another World (TV series)
Another World is an American television soap opera that ran on NBC from May 4, 1964 to June 25, 1999. It ran for a total of 35 years. It was created by Irna Phillips along with William J...

from 1989 through 1991 as District Attorney Morgan Graves. She has also had roles in a number of television series
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...

. She played a recurring character in Liberty! The American Revolution
Liberty!
Liberty! The American Revolution is a six-hour documentary miniseries about the Revolutionary War—and the instigating factors—that brought about the United States' independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain—that first aired in 1997....

(as Abigail Adams
Abigail Adams
Abigail Adams was the wife of John Adams, who was the second President of the United States, and the mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth...

) (1997), Murder One
Murder One (TV series)
Murder One is an American legal drama series that first aired on the ABC network in the United States in 1995. The series was created by Steven Bochco, Charles H. Eglee, and Channing Gibson.-Premise:...

(1995–1996), Law & Order as Carla Tyrell in a recurring role (2000), Hack (2002–2003) and Trust Me
Trust Me (TV series)
Trust Me is an American drama series that began airing on TNT on January 26, 2009 at 10 p.m Eastern/ 9 P.M Central. In Canada, Trust Me can be seen on Super Channel.Trust Me premiered with 3.4 million viewers....

(2009).

External links


  • 2007 Interview with Donna Murphy at The Sondheim Review
    The Sondheim Review
    The Sondheim Review is a quarterly magazine published in the United States since 1994 and, per its tagline, is "Dedicated to the work of the Musical Theatre's foremost composer and lyricist," Stephen Sondheim. It is edited by Cincinnati theatre critic Rick Pender, and its editorial board includes...

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