Erica Tazel

Erica Tazel is an American-born, formally trained theatre and television actor currently starring as the supporting character Rachel Brooks, Deputy U.S. Marshal, in the FX television series Justified (2010–present) alongside Timothy Olyphant.

While Tazel originally anticipated a career in medicine,^[2] the Dallas, Texas native turned instead to theatre, completing a B.A. at Spelman College and an M.F.A. at New York University's Graduate Acting Program.^[3][4]

Tazel made her professional acting debut at the New York Shakespeare Festival’s A Winter’s Tale (2000);^[5][6] her further stage credits include at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Cymbeline in the United Kingdom, an off-Broadway appearance in Playwrights Horizons' Juvenilia, and regional theatrical projects including appearances at The Old Globe (San Diego, Much Ado About Nothing), the Dallas Theatre Center and Arizona Theater Company, and at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, the Laguna Playhouse, and TheaterWorks (Hartford). Tazel was nominated for the L.A. Drama Critics Circle award for Lead Performance, for her work in I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given To Me by a Young Lady from Rwanda (role of Juliette, 2007), and received the NAACP Theatre Award for Best Lead Female (2007) for that same role.^[7]

On screen, Erica Tazel has made limited appearances, including in the 18 min. short As It Is (2010), directed by Ka'ramuu Kush, and in a minor role in the David Duchovny drama House of D (2004, table below), starring Anton Yelchin, Robin Williams, Téa Leoni, and Erykah Badu.^[8]

Tazel's television debut was as a dance teacher an episode of Sex and the City (2001);^[9] her television credits prior to her current supporting, starring role in Justified include a guest leading position on Without A Trace, recurring roles on Jericho and Third Watch, and extensive guest-starring roles on award-winning programs including The Office, ER, Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU, Life, Heartland, Bones and Firefly (table, below).^[10]

Tazel is involved in charitable efforts, including with Get on the Bus, an organization that reuniting children with incarcerated parents, and at Sparrow Rainbow Village, an AIDS hospice and orphanage in Johannesburg, South Africa.^[11]

Filmography

References