Kathleen Chalfant

Chalfant was born Kathleen Ann Bishop[http://www.familytreelegends.com/records/calbirths?c=search&first=Kathleen&last=Bishop&spelling=Exact&4_year=&4_month=0&4_day=0&5=&7=&SubmitSearch.x=35&SubmitSearch.y=11&SubmitSearch=Submit Search: Kathleen Bishop at familytreelegends.com]; accessed April 3, 2014. in San Francisco, California, and was raised in her parents' boarding house in Oakland. Her father, William Bishop, was an officer in the Coast Guard. She studied acting in New York with Wynn Handman, who was a protégé of Sanford Meisner,{{cite news|last1=Ryzik|first1=Melena|title=Nearly 60 Years and Counting, Working on the Art of Theater|newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/nyregion/20wynn.html|access-date=24 April 2016|date=May 20, 2007}} and with Alessandro Fersen in Rome.{{cite web|last1=Sturner|first1=Lynda|title=Brit Wit|url=http://www.theatermania.com/new-york-city-theater/news/03-2000/brit-wit_380.html|website=TheaterMania|access-date=24 April 2016|date=24 March 2000}}

Chalfant worked as a Production Coordinator at Playwrights Horizons in the mid-1970s, beginning with Demons: A Possession by Robert Karmon.{{cite web|title=Demons: A Possession|url=http://www.lortel.org/Archives/Production/4190|website=Internet Off-Broadway Database|publisher=Lucille Lortel Foundation|access-date=24 April 2016}} She made her Off-Broadway acting debut in Cowboy Pictures in June 1974.{{cite web|title=Cowboy Pictures|url=http://www.lortel.org/Archives/Production/4176|website=Internet Off-Broadway Database|publisher=Lucille Lortel Foundation|access-date=24 April 2016}} She has since appeared in over three dozen Off-Broadway productions. In 2015, she appeared in the Women's Project Theater production of Dear Elizabeth by Sarah Ruhl[http://www.lortel.org/lla_archive/index.cfm?search_by=show&id=6650 Dear Elizabeth] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222112108/http://www.lortel.org/lla_archive/index.cfm?search_by=show&id=6650 |date=2015-12-22 }} lortel.org, accessed December 18, 2015 and as Rose Kennedy in the Nora's Playhouse production of Rose by Laurence Leamer.{{cite web|last1=Lloyd Webber|first1=Imogen|title=Kathleen Chalfant Will Headline Laurence Leamer's Rose Off-Broadway|url=http://www.broadway.com/buzz/182040/kathleen-chalfant-will-headline-laurence-leamers-rose-off-broadway/|publisher=Broadway.com|access-date=24 April 2016|date=14 September 2015}}

Chalfant was nominated for her official Broadway debut roleKathleen Henderson, [https://www.broadway.com/buzz/160466/painting-churches-star-kathleen-chalfant-on-wit-angels-in-america-and-a-naughty-role-in-kinsey/ "Painting Churches Star Kathleen Chalfant on Wit, Angels in America and a Naughty Role in Kinsey"], Broadway.com, March 7, 2012 at the 1993 Tony Awards for Best Actress (Featured Role - Play) in Tony Kushner's Angels in America: Millennium Approaches. She earned the Outer Circle Critics, Drama Desk, Obie and Lucille Lortel awards for her performance as Vivian Bearing in Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Wit in 1998; she shaved her head for the role.{{cite news|first=Vincent|last=Canby|title=Battered and Broken, So That She May Rise|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0DEEDE143AF93BA25753C1A96E958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all|work=The New York Times|date=October 18, 1998|access-date=2008-04-05}} During her work with Wit, she incorporated her experiences dealing with terminal cancer of her half-brother, Alan Palmer, who died in 1998.{{cite news|first=Robin|last=Pogrebin|title=A Brother's Death Helps Bring a Performance to Life|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/20/theater/the-creative-life-a-brother-s-death-helps-bring-a-performance-to-life.html|work=The New York Times|date=October 20, 1998|access-date=2008-04-05}}

For her 2003 performance in Alan Bennett's Talking Heads,{{cite news|first=Ben|last=Brantley|title=Life a Bit of a Mess? Just Carry On, Dear|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/07/theater/theater-review-life-a-bit-of-a-mess-just-carry-on-dear.html|work=The New York Times|date=April 7, 2003|access-date=2008-04-05}} Chalfant won a second Obie award. In 2009, Chalfant performed in The People Speak, a documentary feature film{{cite web|title=The People Speak|url=http://howardzinn.org/related-projects/the-people-speak/|website=howardzinn.org|access-date=24 April 2016}} utilizing dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.

Chalfant has played recurring roles in a number of television series including House of Cards, Law & Order, Rescue Me, and The Guardian. Her roles in feature films have included Isn't It Delicious and Kinsey.

Chalfant recently played Margaret Butler in The Affair on Showtime.

She was presented with the 2018 Obie Award for Lifetime Achievement.Gans, Andrew. [http://www.playbill.com/article/kathleen-chalfant-will-receive-2018-obie-award-for-lifetime-achievement# "Kathleen Chalfant Will Receive 2018 Obie Award for Lifetime Achievement"] Playbill, May 7, 2018

In 2018, Chalfant read T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets at the Bard SummerScape Festival as part of a new performance with choreography by Pam Tanowitz, music by Kaija Saariaho, and images by Brice Marden.{{Cite web|url=http://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets/|title=Four Quartets at the Fisher Center|last=Bard College|first=Fisher Center for the Performing Arts|website=fishercenter.bard.edu|language=en|access-date=2018-07-03}}

In 1966, Chalfant married Henry Chalfant, a photographer and documentary filmmaker. They have a son, David Chalfant, who was the bass player for the folk-rock band The Nields, and a daughter, Andromache, a set designer in New York.

Chalfant has spoken about the role of art and artists in advocating for civil rights and social justice,{{cite web|last1=Steketee|first1=Martha Wade|title=Kathleen Chalfant: Practicing 'Political Performance'|url=https://urbanexcavations.com/2013/04/04/kathleen-chalfant-practicing-politial-performance/|publisher=Urban Excavations|access-date=24 April 2016|date=4 April 2013}} and "theater as a platform for social change."{{cite web|title=Kathleen Chalfant to Join Playwrights Panel on January 31|url=http://www.aspeninstitute.org/news/2015/01/29/kathleen-chalfant-join-playwrights-panel-january-31|publisher=Aspen Institute|access-date=24 April 2016|date=29 January 2015}} She has been hosted by the Center for Constitutional Rights as part of the Guantanamo Lawyers Panel,{{cite web|title=Guantanamo Lawyers Panel with CCR's Gitanjali Gutierrez and actress Kathleen Chalfant|url=http://www.ccrjustice.org/home/get-involved/events/guantanamo-lawyers-panel-ccrs-gitanjali-gutierrez-actress-kathleen-chalfant|publisher=Center for Constitutional Rights|access-date=24 April 2016|date=30 August 2011}} and was among a group of artists endorsing a cultural boycott of Israel as part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign to advocate for Palestinian rights.{{cite web|last=Norton|first=Ben|title='Amplify your voice for justice': Roger Waters and prominent artists call for boycott of Israel in new video|url=http://www.salon.com/2015/11/24/amplify_your_voice_for_justice_roger_waters_and_prominent_artists_call_for_boycott_of_israel_in_new_video/|work=Salon|access-date=24 April 2016|date=24 November 2015}}

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Category:American film actresses

Category:American television actresses

Category:Drama Desk Award winners

Category:Living people

Category:Obie Award recipients

Category:Actresses from Oakland, California

Category:20th-century American actresses

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Category:American stage actresses

Category:Actresses from San Francisco

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)