Rondi Reed

Last updated

Rondi Reed
Rondi Reed (cropped).jpg
Reed in the original Chicago cast of August: Osage County
Born (1952-10-26) October 26, 1952 (age 71)
Dixon, Illinois, U.S.
OccupationActress
Years active1986–present

Rondi Anne Reed (born October 26, 1952) is an American actress of stage and screen. A longtime member of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company, she has appeared in more than 50 productions at that theater. Also active on Broadway, she won the 2008 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play for her portrayal of Mattie Fae Aiken in August: Osage County . She is also known for the role of Peggy on the television sitcom Mike & Molly which she played from 2010-2016.

Contents

Early life

Reed was born in Dixon, Illinois. She graduated from Illinois State University [1] in 1977. She then met a Broadway theatrical producer named Stephen Eich in 1976 during her time in Steppenwolf Theater and married him in 1982. They divorced in 2016, after being married for 34 years.

Career

Reed has been a member of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company for many years, appearing in 51 productions with the company. [2] She appeared on Broadway in The Rise and Fall of Little Voice in 1994 and The Grapes of Wrath in 1990, among others. [3] On July 13, 2005, she originated the role of Madame Morrible in the Chicago production of the musical Wicked .

She originated the role of Mattie Fae Aiken in the Broadway production of August: Osage County in 2007, for which she won the 2008 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play. [3]

She later reprised her role of Madame Morrible in Wicked in Chicago, beginning June 27, 2008. Her second run ended November 18, 2008, and she was again replaced by Robertson. She then reprised her role as Mattie Fae Aiken in the London production of August: Osage Country before returning to Madame Morrible in the Broadway production of Wicked. She began performances March 17, 2009, [4] replacing Jayne Houdyshell and bowed out as the evil headmistress on June 27, 2010, to star in the Australian production of August in Sydney. The limited engagement of the show ran from August 13 – September 25, 2010. [5] She returned to the New York production of "Wicked" from July 31, 2017, to January 28, 2018.

She appeared in the Seinfeld episode "The Kiss Hello" (originally aired on February 16, 1995). She starred on the CBS sitcom Mike & Molly , as Peggy Biggs, Mike's mother. She also appeared on Roseanne as Jackie's therapist.

Filmography

Film
YearFilmRoleNotes
1986 One More Saturday Night Mrs. Becker
1992 Mo' Money District Attorney
1993 Born Yesterday Victoria Penny
Joshua Tree Detective ChelseyAlso released as Army of One and Vanishing Red, among other titles
1993 Fearless Veronica Castane
1996 Eye for an Eye Regina Gratz
1997 Jungle 2 Jungle Sarah
1999 The Astronaut's Wife Dr. Conlin
2014CottonNadine
2015Always WorthyMichaela
Television
YearShowRoleNotes
1992 Roseanne TherapistSeason 4 episode 20: "Therapist"
L.A. Law Nancy LapineSeason 6 episode 20: "Beauty and the Breast"
Desperate Choices: To Save My ChildDr. Brunell TV movie
1993 Wild Palms Eileen WhitehopeMiniseries
Episodes: "Everything Must Go" and "The Floating World"
Murder in the Heartland Jonette FoxMiniseries
1995 Grace Under Fire Irma GoldSeason 2 episode 14: "No Money Down"
Seinfeld MarySeason 6 episode 17: "The Kiss Hello"
A Streetcar Named Desire EuniceTV movie
1996Innocent VictimsBonnie GriffinTV movie
1997 Nothing Sacred Barbara KeneallyEpisode 3: "Mixed Blessings"
Night Man Hospitalized girl's MotherSeason 1 episode 5: "Still of the Night"
1998 The Practice Suzanne CarrollSeason 2 episode 22: "Another Day"
Cybill TherapistSeason 4 episode 16: "Fine Is Not a Feeling"
1999 Home Improvement Dr. MillerSeason 8 episode 22: "Loose Lips and Freudian Slips"
2003 Normal Roy's Sister BethTV movie
FargoAnne MendelsonTV movie
2008 Lipstick Jungle LanaSeason 1 episode 4: "Chapter Four: Bombay Highway"
2010 You Don't Know Jack Judge CooperTV movie
2010–2016 Mike & Molly Peggy62 episodes
2014Long Way HomeSandy "Go-Go" RhodesSeason 1 episodes 1-4: "Del 1," "Del 2," "Del 3," "Del 4"
2015 Scandal Mary PetersonSeason 4 episode 20: "First Lady Sings the Blues"
2016 Masters of Sex Edith Schiff Season 4 episodes 5, 6, 7: "Outlier," "Family Only," "In to Me You See"
2018 Disjointed NanaEpisode 18: "A-A-R-Pot"
How To Get Away With MurderJudge Victoria HarperSeason 5 Episode 3: "The Baby Was Never Dead"
Midnight, Texas Grace BarroneSeason 2 episode 4: "I Put A Spell on You"
2019 Speechless NinaSeason 3 episode 13: "F-a-Fashion 4 A-All"
2021 Mom JoleneSeason 8 episode 18: "My Kinda People and the Big To-Do"
2022 B Positive Irene3 episodes
How We Roll Ruth3 episodes
2023Fatal AttractionJudge WebbSeason 1 Episode 7 "Best Friend"

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carol Kane</span> American actress (born 1952)

Carolyn Laurie Kane is an American actress. She gained recognition for her role in Hester Street (1975), for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She became known in the 1970s and 1980s in films such as Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Annie Hall (1977), The Princess Bride (1987), and Scrooged (1988).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Debra Monk</span> American actress

Debra Monk is an American actress, singer, and writer, best known for her performances on the Broadway stage. She earned her first Tony Award for the 1993 production of Redwood Curtain and won an Emmy Award for several guest appearances on NYPD Blue between 1998 and 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laurie Metcalf</span> American actress (born 1955)

Laura Elizabeth Metcalf is an American actress. Metcalf is known for her complex and versatile roles across the stage and screen. She has received various accolades throughout her career spanning more than four decades, including an Obie Award, two Tony Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and three Golden Globe Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jo Anne Worley</span> American actress and comedienne

JoAnne Worley is an American actress, comedian, and singer. Her work covers television, films, theater, game shows, talk shows, commercials, and cartoons. Worley is widely known for her work on the comedy-variety show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michele Lee</span> American actress, producer, and director

Michele Lee is an American actress, singer, dancer, producer and director. She is known for her role as Karen Fairgate MacKenzie on the prime-time soap opera Knots Landing, for which she was nominated for a 1982 Emmy Award and won the Soap Opera Digest Award for Best Actress in 1988, 1991, and 1992. She was the only performer to appear in all 344 episodes of the series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steppenwolf Theatre Company</span> Theater and theater company in Chicago, Illinois, United States

Steppenwolf Theatre Company is a Chicago theater company founded in 1974 by Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, and Gary Sinise in the Immaculate Conception grade school in Highland Park, Illinois and is now located in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood on Halsted Street. The theatre's name comes from Hermann Hesse's novel Steppenwolf, which original member Rick Argosh was reading during the company's inaugural production of Paul Zindel's play, And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little, in 1974. After occupying several theatres in Chicago, in 1991, it moved into its own purpose-built complex with three performing spaces, the largest seating 550.

<i>Wicked</i> (musical) 2003 musical by Stephen Schwartz

Wicked is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Winnie Holzman. It is a loose adaptation of the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, which is in turn based on L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film adaptation.

Susie Blake is an English television, radio and stage actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Plowright</span> English actress (1956–2016)

Louise Plowright was an English actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Testa</span> American actress

Mary Testa is an American stage and film actress. She is a three-time Tony Award nominee, for performances in revivals of Leonard Bernstein's On the Town (1998), 42nd Street (2001) and Oklahoma (2019).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carole Shelley</span> British actress (1939–2018)

Carole Augusta Shelley was an English actress who made her career in the United States and United Kingdom. Her many stage roles included originating the roles of Gwendolyn Pigeon in The Odd Couple and Madame Morrible in Wicked. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in The Elephant Man (1979) and received additional nominations for her work on Absurd Person Singular (1975), Stepping Out (1987), and Billy Elliot (2009).

Isabel Keating is an American actress and singer. She is known for her performance as Judy Garland in the original Broadway production of The Boy from Oz, which earned her a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margo Martindale</span> American actress (born 1951)

Margo Martindale is an American esteemed character actress who has appeared on television, film, and stage. In 2011, she won a Primetime Emmy Award and a Critics' Choice Television Award for her recurring role as Mags Bennett on Justified. She was nominated for an Emmy Award four times for her recurring role as Claudia on The Americans, winning it in 2015 and 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexandra Billings</span> American actress

Alexandra Scott Billings is an American actress, singer, and teacher. Billings, a trans woman, played one of TV's first openly transgender characters in 2005 made-for-TV movie Romy and Michele: In the Beginning. She is also known for portraying the recurring character Davina in the Amazon series Transparent and has played transgender characters in ER, Eli Stone, How to Get Away with Murder, Grey's Anatomy and The Conners.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nancy Opel</span>

Nancy Carol Opel is an American singer and actress, known primarily for her work on Broadway. She was nominated for the 2002 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for originating the role of Penelope Pennywise in the musical Urinetown.

Michele Pawk is an American actress and singer. She is also an associate theater professor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harriet Thorpe</span> English actress

Harriet Amelia Thorpe is an English actress. Thorpe trained at London's Central School of Speech and Drama. She is known for her roles in the British sitcoms, The Brittas Empire (1991–1997) and Absolutely Fabulous (1992–2012) and has also starred in the West End musicals, Cabaret (2006), Wicked (2008) and Mamma Mia! (2010). In 2023, she took over the role of Elaine Peacock in the BBC soap opera, EastEnders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Ashley</span> American actress

Elizabeth Ann Cole, known professionally as Elizabeth Ashley, is an American actress of theatre, film, and television. She has been nominated for three Tony Awards, winning once in 1962 for Take Her, She's Mine. Ashley was also nominated for the BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for her supporting performance in The Carpetbaggers (1964), and was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1991 for Evening Shade. Elizabeth was a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson 24 times. She appeared in several episodes of In the Heat of the Night as Maybelle Chesboro. She also appeared in an episode of Mannix, "The Dark Hours", in 1974.

<i>August: Osage County</i> 2007 play by Tracy Letts

August: Osage County is a tragicomedy play by Tracy Letts. It was the recipient of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play premiered at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago on June 28, 2007, and closed on August 26, 2007. It had its Broadway debut at the Imperial Theater on December 4, 2007, and the production transferred to the Music Box Theatre on April 29, 2008. The Broadway show closed on June 28, 2009, after 648 performances and 18 previews.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amy Morton</span> American actress

Amy Morton is an American actress and director, best known for her work in theatre. Morton was nominated two times for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performances in August: Osage County and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. On screen, she is known for her performances in films Rookie of the Year (1993), Up in the Air (2009), The Dilemma (2011) and Bluebird (2013). In 2014, Morton began starring as Sergeant Trudy Platt in the NBC drama series Chicago P.D.

References

  1. ↑ Sood, Kiran. "A chat with actress Rondi Reed" saukvalley.com, February 16, 2012
  2. ↑ "Rondi Reed biography", steppenwolf.org; retrieved June 10, 2010.
  3. 1 2 "Rondi Reed Broadway Credits and Awards" Playbill (vault), accessed July 18, 2016
  4. ↑ Bacalzo, Dan (February 24, 2009). "Rondi Reed to Be Broadway 'Wickeds New Madame Morrible". theatermania.com.
  5. ↑ Gans, Andrew (June 9, 2010). "Kathy Fitzgerald to Join Cast of Broadway's 'Wicked'" Archived June 13, 2010, at the Wayback Machine . playbill.com.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.