When I was growing up in Bexley, Ohio, I always dreamed that I would live in New York City someday and be a working actor. And now here I am in the theatrical mecca of the universe with everything I love at my fingertips. It wasn't easy at first. I had some weird jobs like driving a taxi, playing Santa Claus in Grand Central Station, even reading minds in the African Room in Times Square. I was fortunate enough to be in the original cast of Godspell which I helped to create, along with my classmates from Carnegie Mellon University. What a wonderful first theatrical experience in New York City it was! I still remember handing out wine to the audience at intermission. They had never seen anything like our show.
My first Broadway show was Happy End with Meryl Streep. She is perhaps the most confident person I have ever met. I went on to do over 100 TV commercials including five for Federal Express. My Right Guard Deodorant commercial won a Clio. One of the highpoints of my career was playing a nun in Sister Act I and II with Whoopi Goldberg. The first day of rehearsals, as a joke, she introduced herself as "Oprah Winfrey." I also enjoyed working with Woody Harrelson in Kingpin. Since he eats only organic food, the meals on the set were indescribably delicious.
The thing I am proudest of is writing and performing my one-woman show, Bexley, Oh!, at New York Theatre Workshop. It was challenging, rewarding and I got some very positive reviews. Now I have written it into a book. I also spent two and a half years in the Broadway cast of the Tony Award winning musical, The Light in the Piazza. Performing at the Tonys was a real thrill. Recently I have been touring my solo show, Willa Cather:Her Life and Loves around the country. Now I have written another solo show called Agatha Christie is Missing. It's an interactive murder mystery in which I play Ace Detective Miss Clarissa Marbles and try to solve the strange disappearance of the famous author.I am so incredibly grateful to have lived a life doing what I love that has brought me so much joy.
The Secrets of A Mockingbird
Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, was of one of America’s most beloved but reclusive authors. In this solo show, we learn of her close relationships with her father and her childhood friend,Truman Capote, until they both broke her heart. She never wrote another book. Until she did.
read moreAgatha is Missing
Ace Detective, Miss Clarissa Marbles interrogates the audience as she tries to get to the bottom of the real-life disappearance of Agatha Christie in 1926. Gunshots ring out, screams are heard in the night and a rollicking good time is had by all in this fun-filled interactive murder mystery.
read moreWilla Cather Her Life and Loves
Willa Cather, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, led a fascinating life during a time when women seldom had the opportunity to do so. Prudence Wright Holmes’ solo show takes us on her journey, from transgender teenager in 1880’s Nebraska, through college and her years as drama critic at the Pittsburgh Daily Leader, editor at McClure’s magazine, and successful author, through to her death in 1947. Cather met well-known writers like Theodore Dreiser and Mark Twain, and became part of the muckraking journalism movement which helped expose corrupt business practices in large corporations and led to anti-trust legislation. Her book “One of Ours” was her first best seller. It won a Pulitzer Prize, opening many doors for Cather and led to continued professional success for the rest of her...
read moreBexley Oh!
Growing up in the epicenter of Nixon country is difficult for the hippie radical daughter of right wing parents whose world is turned upside down when their maid becomes a civil rights activist. NY TImes – “absorbing” … the … hero of these two stories is Ms.Holmes herself, who, in her version of things, was born a subversive and managed to grow up in this stifling household unmarked [by] its values. You’re on her side……… Associated Press her understated performance is the play’s secret weapon. …she is clearly a performer to watch… From Variety …the droll twist of her thin smile and the wicked twinkle in her eye promise comedy tonight. …it’s clear she has a gift for understated character comedy. From The NY Post A clever narrator makes her childhood memories a grotesquely funny portrait of a society in decay in “Bexley, OH,” now at the New York Theatre Workshop. Prudence Wright Holmes delivers with wry wit and compassionate cruelty this picture of the prim, Protestant Ohio suburb in the ’50s and...
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