Rita Gardner

Gardner made her stage debut as Luisa in the original cast of "The Fantasticks" in 1960. Additional off-Broadway credits include "The Cradle Will Rock" (1964), "To Be Young, Gifted, and Black" (1969), "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris" (1972), "Steel Magnolias" (1987), and "The Foreigner" (2004).

Gardner made her Broadway debut in the short-lived "A Family Affair" in 1962. She was featured in a brief 1963 revival of "Pal Joey" and replaced Susan Watson soon after the opening of "Ben Franklin in Paris" in 1964, after which her Broadway career stalled, finding her serving merely as a standby or understudy in "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever" (1965), "The Last of the Red Hot Lovers" (1969), and "Morning's at Seven" (2002). She had a featured role in "The Wedding Singer" in 2006.

Gardner's regional theatre credits include "Showboat" and "The Impossible Years" at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania (1983), "Lucky in the Rain" at the Goodspeed Opera House (1997), and "Eleanor: A Love Story" at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. (1999). She appeared in the national tours of "Kiss of the Spider Woman" (1994) and "Try to Remember: A Look Back at Off-Broadway" (2002).

Gardner's television credits include appearances in "Law & Order", ', and '.

Gardner was married to playwright Herb Gardner; the marriage ended in divorce.

She was a faculty member for the sixth annual Cabaret Conference at Yale University in 2008.

External links

*
*
* [http://www.lortel.org/LLA_archive/index.cfm?search_by=people&first=Rita&middle=&last=Gardner Lortel Archives listing]