Courtney Walsh
AEA,SAG-AFTRA
Next Appearing in:
Mother Lear at Cal Shakes
September 15 - October 2
https://calshakes.org/we-players-mother-lear/
Courtney Walsh
Up Next:
Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Summer 2024
I am a professional actor, director and writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. I most recently appeared at Berkeley Rep in Mother Road, as the Wicked Witch in American Conservatory Theater's critically acclaimed fresh new take on The Wizard of Oz, and as Miss Scarlet in San Francisco Playhouse's smash hit Clue. I received the 2018 Theatre Bay Area Award for Outstanding Actor for the title role in We Players' Mother Lear, which I also co-wrote and co-directed, earning nominations for Outstanding Play and Outstanding Director. Mother Lear plays at Cal Shakes this fall. I was nominated as Outstanding Actor in 2017, by both Theatre Bay Area and Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle, for the title role in Phèdre at Cutting Ball Theater. I am a proud member of AEA and SAG-AFTRA.
In 2022 reprised my role in Mother Lear in New York City, appeared at Z Space in San Francisco with Word for Word's Boys Go to Jupiter, and in the feature film widowbird with B. Bros. Productions. Prior to COVID-19 closings in 2020, I appeared in La Peur (in French), at the Exit Theater, a solo show as Susan Sontag: The Smartest Woman in America at The Marsh in San Francisco, and in the film Cold Call by Toshigawa Pictures.
Scores of past appearances include the West Coast premiere of Native Son at Marin Theatre Company; Happy Days (Oh, les Beaux Jours) in the U.S. and France (in both English and French); The Wanderings of Odysseus at the Cacoyannis Theater in Athens, Greece; a multi-continent tour as the title character in Clytemnestra: Tangled Justice; Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet with We Players; Jerusalem at San Francisco Playhouse; and Dear Harvey at New Conservatory Theatre.
Over twelve seasons and twenty-nine productions with Stanford Repertory Theater, I co-directed and acted in Moby Dick Rehearsed (for which I won Theatre Bay Area Awards for Outstanding Production, Directing and Acting), appeared in Hay Fever (nominated for Outstanding Production by the Bay Area Theater Critics Circle), Oedipus (hailed by the San Francisco Examiner critic as "the finest piece of classical drama I have ever seen") and many others.
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I studied theater at Yale University, where I worked with directors Tina Landau, Rick Lombardo, David Esbjornson, and Christopher Ashley, among others. After Yale, I continued my work on stage and screen in Los Angeles. During a hiatus from acting I earned a law degree, representing children in child abuse cases from the trial level to the California Supreme Court.
Since returning to the stage in 2006, I have played nationally (New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Antonio, Jackson, Salt Lake City, and others) and internationally (Paris, Athens, Berlin, Amsterdam, Cardiff, Corfu, Sydney, Wellington, Auckland, and others). I starred in The Track, which was a film festival selection in Boston, Miami, Sun Valley, Sonoma and Las Vegas.
I taught a CSP Drama course at Stanford University for four years, in addition to twenty-five workshops on acting at six universities in the U.S. and twelve abroad. I currently teach a continuing studies course entitled The View From the Stage: Theater History through the Actor's Lens. I am fluent in French, proficient in Spanish, and adept at many dialects. I am a mother of four, a dancer and a lifelong equestrienne.