BIOGRAPHY
Jennifer Roszell
Jennifer graduated from the American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University in 1992 and moved to New York City. In those first years, she worked as a temp and became a theatrical Bedouin, performing at regional theatres in such romantic locales as Knoxville, Tennessee; Cleveland, Ohio; and Westerly, Rhode Island. During the final week of her Cleveland run in Moliere’s School for Wives, she received a call summoning her back to New York. The soap opera Guiding Light needed an urgent replacement for one of their lead characters. The character spoke with a Greek accent, and as Jennifer was married to a Greek man at the time (don’t ask), she was unusually proficient at mimicking that particular dialect. She landed the part, and flew back to finish her run of the play. So, one week she was roller-blading on a raked stage, speaking the words of Moliere, and the next she was on a soundstage in front of a camera for the oldest continuously broadcast show in television history. Go figure.
Jennifer spent three lovely, debt-reducing years on the Guiding Light, where she learned a great deal about working on-camera, and discovered that soap acting was really, really hard. She then stepped into the lead role of Sam MacRae, a fast-talking newspaper editor in the AMC series, Paramour. Starring in this period piece—in the style of Howard Hawks’ film, His Girls Friday—she was able to indulge in her love for all things 1940’s. Sadly, despite its terrific cast (which also included Kristin Chenoweth), the pilot and three other episodes still sit on the network shelves, gathering dust.
After her stint on the small screen, Jennifer happily returned to theatre, albeit closer to home. She landed the role of Catarina—a model and muse to the renaissance sculptor, Benevenuto Cellini—in Cellini, written and directed by John Patrick Shanley. It was performed at New York Stage and Film and, after multiple readings, Off-Broadway at Second Stage. Jennifer also performed in High Infidelity Off-Broadway at the Promenade Theatre. Hitting the road again, she performed in two plays at San Diego’s Old Globe: Smash and Tom Stoppard’s play-with-music, Rough Crossing. The Stoppard play holds a special place in her heart, as it’s where she met her current husband (you can ask this time), the musician/conductor/composer Karl Mansfield. Recently, she performed in The Mysteries at Classic Stage Company, The Miracle Worker at the Berkshire Theatre Festival, The Comedy of Errors at Yale Rep, and has thankfully fulfilled the Law & Order requirement on her NY Actor resume.
This past year, she was selected by Sam Mendes and David Hare to understudy Julianne Moore in Mr. Hare’s The Vertical Hour on Broadway. Relationships from her A.R.T. Institute past are very present in her life now, as she can be seen in the recurring role of Deb Shayes in FX’s new hit show, Damages, which stars Glenn Close and Ted Danson. Glenn Kessler and Todd Kessler, both undergrads at Harvard whom Jennifer met when she was at the A.R.T., write and produce the show.