Actress and Comedienne, Nora Dunn

April 25th, 2012




Nora Dunn on the April 30th Fear No ART presents The Dinner Party.

Saturday Night Live served as Ms. Dunn’s first job in front of a camera.  The cast that returned in 1985 with the show’s original producer, Lorne Michaels, included Dunn, Dana Carvey, Mike Myers, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Jon Lovitz, and Dennis Miller.  During her five-year tenure she created memorable recurring characters such as Liz Sweeney and Pat Stevens.  She co-starred for three seasons on NBC’s drama Sisters, with Swoosie Kurtz and Sela Ward, followed by one season on Fran Drescher’s sit-com, The Nanny.  She has performed in such films as Working Girl, Miami Blues, How I Got Into College, Bulworth, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Runaway Jury, Bruce Almighty, Three Kings, Laws of Attraction, Zoolander, Pineapple Express, and opposite Meryl Streep in It’s Complicated.  She appears in the film Guilt Trip with Seth Rogan and Barbra Streisand, which opens nationwide November 2, 2112.

She has appeared in the TV dramas Law & Order, Boston Legal, The X-Files: Wonderland Parts I and II, The Defenders, Harry’s Law, Psych, Criminal Minds, Numb3ers, and CSI: Miami.  More recent comedies include Curb Your Enthusiasm, Everything’s Sunny In Philadelphia, Everybody Loves Raymond, Just Shoot Me, Pushing Daisies, and four seasons on HBO’s Entourage as Jeremy Piven’s therapist, Dr. Markus.  Ms. Dunn is currently showcasing her one-woman show, Mythical Proportions, which will play at The Road Theater in North Hollywood and The Acorn in Three Oaks, Michigan, before it opens for an official run in Chicago, her native city and home.

Her most recent stage appearance was in Nora Ephron’s Love, Loss and What I Wore at The Broadway Playhouse in Chicago in 2011.  She was one of many actresses who performed in the long running phenomenon, The Vagina Monologues, in Los Angeles, as well as in San Francisco and Santa Fe.  She played Bea Small in Precious Sons at The Blank Theater Company opposite Tony Award winner Gregg Jbara and Adam Wylie.  Her critically acclaimed one-woman show, Small Prey, ran for sixteen weeks in Los Angeles in 1998-1999.  She is also the author of a collection of comic stories, Nobody’s Rib, published in 1990 by Harper/Collins.


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