Jayne Houdyshell

Raised in Topeka, Kansas, she is the youngest of four daughters born to Galen "Buzz" Houdyshell and Louella Taylor. She graduated from Topeka High School in 1971, and she went on to graduate with honors from the Academy of Dramatic Art at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan[2] in 1974.

Since the mid-1970s, she has appeared in more than 200 plays at regional theaters throughout the United States, including the Meadow Brook Theater, Attic Theater, Missouri Repertory Theater, Asolo Repertory Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Yale Repertory Theater, McCarter Theater, Delaware Theater Company, Wilma Theater, Syracuse Stage, Studio Arena, GeVa Theater, Actors Theater of Louisville, Steppenwolf Theater, American Conservatory Theater, Old Creamery Theatre, Totem Pole Playhouse, Peterborough Players, and others.

Houdyshell reminisces that, after moving to Manhattan in 1980, “I was traveling all that 20 years...There was a community of actors who did that. We were itinerant actors who just continually moved around the country from theater to theater and job to job...Detroit. Kansas City. Sarasota. Louisville. Buffalo. Syracuse. She did Shirley Valentine five different times. She did four Broadway Bound 's and three Importance of Being Earnest 's, not including the one she later stepped into on Broadway. She did the warhorses by Coward, Inge, Williams, Miller, Shaw."[3]

In New York, she is known for her role as "Ann Kron" in the Broadway production of Well by Lisa Kron. It was a role that garnered her a Tony Award nomination in 2006.[4] She won a Theater World Award and an Obie Award, Outstanding Performance, for the Off-Broadway production of Well, which ran in 2004 at the Public Theater.[5][6]

She received the 2005 Joseph Jefferson Award, Supporting Actress, Play for her performance in The Pain and the Itch for Steppenwolf Theatre Company[7] and a 2005 Barrymore Award, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Play for her work in The Clean House at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia.[8][9]

Houdyshell's Broadway credits include Wicked, Well, Bye Bye Birdie,[10] and The Importance of Being Earnest. She played the role of "Hattie" in the 2011 revival of Follies,[11] and received a 2012 Tony Award nomination, Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance.[12] Houdyshell played the Nurse in the 2013 Broadway revival of Romeo and Juliet.[13]

She appeared in The Humans as "Deirdre Blake", first in its Off-Broadway engagement at the Roundabout Theatre Company in September 2015 to December 2015,[14] and then the Broadway production of the play which opened at the Helen Hayes Theatre on February 18, 2016. For The Humans she won the 2016 Tony Award, Featured Actress in a Play,[15] the 2016 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Ensemble Performance,[16] and the Obie Award, Performance.[17] She was also nominated for the 2016 Outer Critics Circle Award, Outstanding Actress in a Play.

In 2017 she played Ann Marie in Lucas Hnath's A Doll's House, Part 2.

Houdyshell's other New York credits include Harrison, TX: Three Plays by Horton Foote at Primary Stages, Coraline,[18] The New Century, at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center (2008);[19] The Receptionist at the Manhattan Theater Club (2007);[20] Much Ado About Nothing (Delacorte Theatre, 2004);[21] Fighting Words, and The Pain and the Itch at Playwrights Horizons (2009); [22] Attempts on Her Life at Soho Rep; and True Love at the Zipper Theater (2001).[23]

In April 2019, Houdyshell returned to Broadway as the Earl of Gloucester in the Sam Gold directed production of King Lear, with Glenda Jackson in the title role.

In 2020, Houdyshell will be playing Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn in the upcoming revival of The Music Man, set to star Hugh Jackman & Sutton Foster.

Houdyshell's television credits include appearances on Law & Order,[24] Third Watch, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

She has appeared in films including Changing Lanes (2002), Garden State (2004), Trust the Man (2006), and Everybody's Fine.[24] She had a small role as a landlady in the 2010 film The Bounty Hunter.[25]

She starred on the third season of the ABC thriller Quantico as The Widow.[26]

In 2019, she appeared as the housekeeper Hannah in Greta Gerwig's critically acclaimed adaptation of Little Women.[27]