Occupation Actress, Singer Years active 1977–present | Name Katherine McGrath Role Singer | |
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Born December 11, 1944 (age 79) ( 1944-12-11 ) Winchester, Massachusetts, U.S. Similar People Rebecca Luker, Craig Bierko, Susan Stroman | ||
Katherine McGrath is an American singer and stage and television actress, who has appeared in several Broadway plays.
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Early career
McGrath struggled to gain a career in theater. For 14 years in the 1970s and 1980s, she acted almost exclusively in regional theater. McGrath received some press attention by 1977 for her work. She performed in Lake Charles, Louisiana at the Little Theater in a 1977 production called Katherine McGrath with a little help from her friends. By the early 1980s, she even gave up looking for acting work in New York, expressing that "it would be nice" to work in her adopted home town; however, the wide repertory of regional play house "alleviates the boredom of doing the same role night after night," she told the New York Times in 1983.
From 1988 to 1994, McGrath appeared as a guest in several television shows. She also appeared repeatedly at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego from 1982 to 1992; eventually the "veteran actress" snagged a starring role in the one-woman show, Shirley Valentine.
In summer and fall 2001, McGrath played "Emelia" in Othello back at the Old Globe Theatre, to a decidedly mixed review.
Broadway career
McGrath appeared in A Man of No Importance at the Lincoln Center Theater in the dual role of Mrs. Grace and Kitty Farrelly from September 12 to December 29, 2002.
McGrath was cast as Miss Pross in the Broadway musical adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities, which opened for preview on August 19, 2008 at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre in New York. She was in the original casts of both the Sarasota and Broadway casts. The Broadway show closed on November 8, 2008.
She played "Grandma" in Billy Elliott at the Imperial Theatre from September 26, 2011 to January 8, 2012.