Katie Finneran (#276) - July, 2010

“Promises, Promises” scene stealer Katie Finneran (2010 Tony Award winner for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for “Promises, Promises”; 2002 Tony Award winner for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play for “Noises Off”) talks about creating the character of Marge McDougall for only two scenes and why she had to be "the anti-Kristin," what it's like having so much free time during the course of a performance and what's beyond the secret door in her dressing room's bathroom. She also talks about why she left Carnegie Mellon's theatre program after a short stay; how she came to New York intent on studying with Uta Hagen and managed to do so, on and off, for some 15 years; why we've only seen her in three musicals over the course of almost two decades of Broadway gigs; how instrumental Lincoln Center Theater has been in her career, providing her with parts in such shows as “Two Shakespearean Actors”, “The Heiress” and “My Favorite Year”; what it has been like working with Neil Simon on the “Promises” revival and, earlier, on his new play “Proposals”; how she handled performing in the lengthy “The Iceman Cometh” -- and why she compares that experience to “Love, Loss and What I Wore”; and the often dangerous experience of appearing in the 2001 revival of “Noises Off”.