Maria Friedman

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Maria Friedman (born Switzerland, 19 March 1960) is a musical theatre actress who has worked on both the Broadway and West End stages as well as television.

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[edit] Family

Maria was born in Switzerland and was brought up in the UK (but her first language in childhood was German). She comes from a family who are mostly connected with the performing arts; her sister Sonia is a successful musical theatre producer, and produced Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical The Woman in White in which Maria starred in both London and New York.

She has two sons, Toby and Alfie, the former with Jeremy Sams.

[edit] Theatre

Maria Friedman was never formally trained in the areas of singing or acting but, nevertheless, is considered an artistic force in British theatre. She also has retained a personal principle to always keep herself artistically interested, and challenged even if it meant turning away commercially successful shows. She is once quoted saying, “I’ve never said that I don’t want to do overly commercial things…I will only accept a project which I find interesting and challenging…being on stage for me is about discovery.” [1]

Maria has performed in many productions, details of some are below.

She first gained fame when she won an Olivier Award for her one-woman cabaret, Maria Friedman By Special Arrangement and another Olivier Award starring in Stephen Sondheim's Passion in 1996, and later became one of the main leading ladies on the London Stage. She would later star in Chicago and Ragtime, both on the West End.

Most recently, she originated the role of Marian Halcombe in Andrew Lloyd Webber's latest musical The Woman in White in the West End, and on Broadway. In the 1999 film of Lloyd Webber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, she played the narrator.

As previews for the show started for the Broadway production, she was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer and left the show to have surgery to have the lump removed. Less than a week after the surgery she returned to the stage for the previews and performed on the official opening night. She said she would begin radiation treatment for the cancer in December 2005[2]. The Broadway production closed after only 109 performances on February 22, 2006, in part due to her and co-star Michael Ball's frequent absences due to illness.

As well as other musical shows, Maria participated in Hey, Mr. Producer!, the concert celebrating the works of Sir Cameron Mackintosh, in which she sang "You Could Drive a Person Crazy," "Broadway Baby," and "How Many Tears?" Similarly, she participated in Sondheim Tonight live at London's Barbican Centre, singing "Losing My Mind" (from Follies) and "More" (from the film Dick Tracy). She has also had several one woman shows: Maria Friedman - By Special Arrangement and Maria Friedman - By Extra Special Arrangement and has performed these in several top Cabaret venues in both UK and on Broadway.

She can be heard on many cast recordings; and has released several solo albums including Maria Friedman, Maria Friedman Live, and Now and Then.

Maria has won three Laurence Olivier Awards and been nominated for seven.

[edit] Partial list of productions

[edit] Film and television

As well as her theatre work, Maria has appeared in films and television shows.

She played the narrator in the film version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, her television work includes Red Dwarf, and she regularly appeared in Casualty.

[edit] External links