"The versatile Nancy Anderson...is sublime"- New York Times
Nancy Anderson is a 25-year veteran singer, actress and dancer on Broadway, off-Broadway West End and regional stages. Nancy made her Broadway Debut as Mona in A Class Act and played the roles of Helen and Eileen in the Broadway revival of Wonderful Town. More recently, she played Thomas Jefferson in the all female, trans and non-binary revival of 1776 and understudied Glenn Close in the 2017 revival of Sunset Boulevard. PBS “Great Performances” audiences know her for her Olivier-nominated performance of Lois/Bianca in the 2001 West End revival of Kiss Me Kate. Nancy is also featured on the Great Performances broadcast of South Pacific in Concert at Carnegie Hall starring Reba McIntyre.
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Off Broadway, Nancy starred alongside Charles Busch in his recent comic melodrama, The Confession of Lily Dare. She played Kelli O’Hara’s best friend in Frankel and Korie’s Far From Heaven at Playwrights horizons and all the female characters in the Zellnik Brothers’ off-Broadway hit, Yank! She received a 2000 Drama Desk Award Nomination for her portrayal of all the Women in Jolson & Co at the York Theater and a 2005 Drama Desk Nomination as the title role in Fanny Hill. Nancy earned her third Drama Desk Nomination in 2017 for her riveting performance in a tour-de-force one-woman musical, The Pen by Julianne Wick Davis. Nancy’s self-produced film version of The Pen will be released at the end of the summer.
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Regionally, Nancy has played leading roles coast to coast, including Adelaide in Guys and Dolls and Oolie/Donna in City of Angels at The Goodspeed Opera House, the title role in Peter Pan and Ilona in She Loves Me at Papermill Playhouse, Gloria in Damn Yankees (Seattle Fifth Avenue), Miriam Aarons in Darko Tresjnak’s production of The Women (San Diego’s Old Globe) and Ordinary Days at South Coast Rep in Costa Mesa, CA. Nancy has been nominated four times for Washington DC’s Helen Hayes Awards: In 2002 for Lois/Bianca in the National Tour of Kiss Me Kate (Kennedy Center), in 2012 for Side By Side By Sondheim (Signature Theater, VA), in 2018 for Gladys in The Pajama Game (Arena) and in 2019 for Mrs. Wilkinson in Billy Elliot (Signature Theater, VA). In 2019, Nancy premiered another Julianne Wick Davis premiere, The Willard Suitcases, directed by her husband, Ethan McSweeny at the American Shakespeare Center in her current home town of Staunton, VA.
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Nancy’s television appearances include The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (as the exercise instructor), Madam Secretary, The Other Two, and The Gilded Age playing Nathan Lane’s wife. A self-produced short film of her Drama Desk Nominated performance in the one-woman musical, The Pen is set to release in Fall of 2024.
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She has appeared twice with Michael Feinstein at Carnegie Hall and is the 2011 winner of the Noel Coward Cabaret Award Competition. Nancy has performed with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and she sings regularly at Town Hall in Scott Siegel’s “Broadway by the Year” series. Nancy has enjoyed several appearances in the “Lyrics and Lyricists” series at the 92nd Street Y alongside such greats as Charles Busch and the late, great Sheldon Harnick. She has appeared as a guest vocalist with Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks, the Bob Hardwick Sound and is frequently seen at the legendary jazz club, Birdland with Ross Patterson and His Little Big Band featuring songs from her album, “Ten Cents a Dance”.
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In recent years, Nancy has added the roles of teacher, coach, choreographer and director to her resume. Nancy is the Director of Dance at Mary Baldwin University in Staunton, VA. and teaches musical theater voice and performance at Shenandoah Musical Theater Conservatory in Winchester, VA. Nancy directed and choreographed American Idiot while serving as a guest adjunct professor at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA and has served as choreographer, vocal director and movement director for several of her husband’s Shakespeare productions at the Shakespeare Theater in Washington DC.