Sally Murphy (born 1962) is an American actress and singer. She has appeared in plays and musicals on Broadway, off-Broadway and regional theatre, including The Grapes of Wrath , Carousel , Fiddler on the Roof and August: Osage County . She has been a Steppenwolf Theatre Company member since 1993 and appeared in several of their productions. [1] She has also appeared in films and on television.
Murphy is the only child of Edward, an electrician, and Pat Murphy, a social worker. [2] She grew up in Auburn Gresham, Chicago, Illinois. As a young child she did skits with neighborhood friends and studied piano. She appeared in school shows in junior high school and starred in musical performances and theater at Lincoln-Way High School in New Lenox, from which she graduated in 1980. She majored in voice at Northwestern University graduating in 1984. [2]
After college, she performed in plays in Chicago, working with the Goodman Theatre in 1986. [2] Three years later, she played Rose of Sharon in Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath , along with Steppenwolf co-founder Gary Sinese (Tom Joad) and Lois Smith (Ma Joad). [2] She repeated this role at La Jolla Playhouse, London’s National Theatre, and then Cort Theatre on Broadway. [2] [3] She also appeared in the television adaptation of the play for the PBS series American Playhouse in 1991. [4] In the 1994 Broadway revival of the musical Carousel , Murphy played Julie Jordan alongside Audra McDonald as Carrie Pipperidge. [5]
In 1995, after Murphy saw the hit play Skylight at London's National Theatre, she told Steppenwolf management she wanted to bring the play there, struck by its dramatic presentation of a relationship on stage and challenging role for the lead actress. [6] Steppenwolf produced the play in 1997 with Murphy as Kyra Hollis. [6]
In 2001 at the Vineyard Theatre, she portrayed Susan Smith in Cornelius Eady's two character play Brutal Imagination, which centers on the real-life 1994 case of Smith, a white woman from South Carolina who falsely claimed that an African American man had kidnapped her two young sons; she had drowned them herself. Joe Morton played the imaginary Black man Smith invented to blame for the crime. [7] The actors reunited in 2025 to do a one night reading with proceeds benefiting the Innocence Project. [8] She appeared in the The Apple Family plays as the character Jane Apple in Regular Singing (2013), [9] reprising the role in a Zoom format in 2020 when theaters were closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. [10]
Murphy has been a member of Steppenwolf since 1993. [1] Her credits there include The Common Pursuit (1988), The Grapes of Wrath (1989), Skylight (1997), Uncle Vanya (2001), Mother Courage and Her Children (2001), The Royal Family (2002), August: Osage County (2007), Sex with Strangers (2011), Time Stands Still (2012), The Minutes (2017), and Linda Vista (2017). [1] Her Broadway credits include The Grapes of Wrath (1990), Carousel (1994), The Wild Party (2000), Fiddler on the Roof (2004), August: Osage County (2007), Linda Vista (2019), and The Minutes (2022). [11] She was nominated for the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Musical in 2015 for her performance as Jenny in The Threepenny Opera . [12]
She also appeared in several films between 1992 and 2001. [6] [13]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | The Common Pursuit | Marigold | Steppenwolf Theatre | [14] |
| 1989 | The Grapes of Wrath | Rose of Sharon | La Jolla Playhouse, National Theatre, Cort Theatre | [2] |
| 1990 | Harvey | Myrtle Mae Simmons | Apollo Theater | [15] |
| 1991 | Earthly Possessions | Mindy | Steppenwolf Theatre | [16] |
| 1994 | Carousel | Julie Jordan | Vivian Beaumont Theater | [5] [17] |
| 1996 | Bernarda Alba | Amelia | Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater | [18] |
| 1997 | Skylight | Kyra Hollis | Steppenwolf Theatre | [6] |
| 2000 | The Wild Party | Sally | Virginia Theatre | [19] |
| 2001 | Uncle Vanya | Yelena | Steppenwolf Studio | [20] |
| 2001 | Mother Courage and Her Children | Katterin | Steppenwolf Theatre | [21] |
| 2001 | Brutal Imagination | Susan Smith | Vineyard Theatre | [7] |
| 2002 | The Royal Family | Gwen Cavendish | Steppenwolf Theatre | [22] |
| 2002 | A Man of No Importance | Adele | Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater | [23] |
| 2004 | Fiddler on the Roof | Tzeitel | Imperial Theatre | [24] |
| 2005 | A Tree Grows in Brooklyn | Katie | City Center | [25] |
| 2007 | August: Osage County | Ivy Weston | Downstairs Theatre, Imperial Theatre | [26] |
| 2011 | Sex with Strangers | Olivia | Steppenwolf Theatre | [27] |
| 2012 | Time Stands Still | Sarah | Upstairs Theatre | [28] |
| 2013 | Regular Singing | Jane Apple | The Public Theater | [9] |
| 2014 | The Threepenny Opera | Jenny Towler | Atlantic Theater Company, nominated for Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Musical | [29] |
| 2016 | Angel Reapers | Mother Ann Lee | Signature Theatre | [30] |
| 2017/2022 | The Minutes | Ms. Matz | Steppenwolf Theatre/Studio 54 | [31] [32] |
| 2017/2019 | Linda Vista | Margaret | Steppenwolf Theatre/Hayes Theater | [33] |
| 2018 | Admissions | Ginnie | Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater | [34] |
| 2020 | Incidental Moments of the Day - The Apple Family: Life on Zoom | Jane Apple | YouTube | [10] |
| 2022 | Downstate | Em | Playwrights Horizons | [35] |
| 2025 | The Baker's Wife | Hortense | Classic Stage Company's Lynn F. Angelson Theater | [36] |