Ann Morrison

Ann Morrison is an award-winning actress, writer, teacher, and director for over 45 years. She began acting in summer stock as a teenager and studied at HB Studios in New York before taking a gig at 19 with Korean big band leader Benny Kim, touring the midwest with his family as singer, Emcee and trombone player in The Benny Kim Show. She then apprenticed at the Burt Reynolds Institute for Theater Training in Florida where she was cast as the Girl in The Fantasticks, earned her Equity card with The Sound of Music, and appeared on Dinah Shore's daytime talk show Dinah and Friends! when Burt Reynolds co-hosted and predicted Ann would be appearing on Broadway in a year (it would be 2 years). Back in New York as a professional, she was cast in a re-working of Alfred Uhry and Robert Waldman's Swing which was renamed Dream Time and reduced to 3 characters playing at the Harold Clurman Off-Broadway. Ann did regional theater productions of Babes In Arms and Grease before being cast as Mabel Normand in a new musical Keystone at Geva Theatre in Rochester. Director/choreographer Ron Field saw her in the production and suggested casting director Joanna Merlin see her for Mary Flynn, the only role still not filled in Merrily We Roll Along headed for Broadway. After a series of auditions, she met with Harold Prince and Stephen Sondheim on her 25th birthday and was cast. Her debut in Merrily We Roll Along garnered her the 1982 Theatre World Award, and she did her first OBC LP recording for RCA. 25 years later (2007) Harold Prince brought her back to Broadway for LoveMusik. She sang in a Sondheim celebration Children and Art at the New Amsterdam Theater and at the Merrily Reunion Concert at Laguardia High School. On London's West End she originated the title role in the musical PEG (based on “Peg O’ My Heart”). Off-Broadway she joined the original cast of Forbidden Broadway playing Mary Martin, Carol Channing, Julie Andrews, and Patti Lupone (which she recreated on the TV show MERV ) and originated the role of Lizzie in the musical Goblin Market for which she received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Musical and a Best Plays Citation for Best Actress. Nationally, she has starred in Sondheim on Sondheim, Moving On, Into the Woods, Peter Pan, Guys & Dolls, Cabaret, Oliver! Sunset Boulevard, On A Clear Day, Anything Goes, CanCan, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Good News, Embarrassments, Anyone Can Whistle, On The Verge, Noel & Gertie, Shadowlands, Ruthless!, I Do, I Do! Little Shop Of Horrors, Chess, Blithe Spirit, Of Thee I Sing, Driving Miss Daisy, plus many many more. The quintessential solo artist, Ann has performed as a cabaret artist in major venues across the country and in London, most recently at Feinstein's/54 Below in NYC where her MERRILY FROM CENTER STAGE garnered her the 2023 Bistro Award for Best Solo Musical. She won a 2012 Best Actress Award for her solo play Linda Lovely Goes to Broadway in the United Solo Festival in NYC and appeared there again with her solo play Word Painting: Soliloquies Around an Easel. Directing credits include both her solo play Trevor's Fire starring Blake Walton and his solo play Leading Men at the United Solo Festival; large musicals The Secret Garden, Merrily We Roll Along, On A Clear Day, Smoke On the Mountain as well as many plays and revues. She is the Co-founder and Artistic Director of Sarasolo Productions, which celebrates solo theatre artists. She can be heard on original cast recordings and studio recordings such as Merrily We Roll Along, Peg, Goblin Market, Good News, I Remember Mama, Lady Be Good (1993 Gramophone Award), and The Busby Berkeley Album, Sing Before Breakfast, and The Road to Ruin. She is the recipient of several HANDY, SAMMY, and SARASOTA MAGAZINE Awards as well as the JOHN RINGLING TOWERS AWARD. Ann plays herself in the 2017 documentary Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened. Most recently she played King Herod in JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR at The Asolo Repertory Theatre before starring as Kimberly in the 1st National Tour of Kimberly Akimbo .