Ingrid Lemme featured four time Tony nominee Tovah Feldshuh, who actually plays Irena in Irenas Vow on her American Dream talk Show filmed at Gurney’s Inn resort and spa in the Hamptons. The talented actress is well known for her portrayal of Golda Meir on Broadway. Ms. Feldshuh, ever the professional, put her guard down and opened up to Ingrid about how she researched both roles and what she puts into Irenas Vow every night. Although all of Ingrids shows always maintain a high level of excellence this one will forever be on the top shelf. A full house watched the taping and sat spell bound by the skills and talent of Tovah Feldshuh.
Tovah Feldshuh -For her work on the New York stage, from Yentl to Sarava! to Lend Me A Tenor to Goldas Balcony, Tovah Feldshuh has earned four Tony nominations for Best Actress and won four Drama Desk Awards (including one for Goldas Balcony), four Outer Critics Circle Awards, the Obie, the Theatre World Award and the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Actress (for Goldas Balcony). On October 3, 2004, Goldas Balcony became the longest-running one-woman show in the history of Broadway. Soon after the Broadway run, Ms. Feldshuh brought Goldas Balcony to Los Angeles Wadsworth Theatre and San Franciscos Geary Theater in collaboration with Richard Willis and Marty Markinson for eight sold-out weeks. Other shows on Broadway include Cyrano (with Christopher Plummer), Rodgers And Hart and Dreyfus In Rehearsal. Feldshuh portrayed the title roles in the Roundabout Theatres She Stoops To Conquer and Mistress Of The Inn, BAMs Three Sisters with Rosemary Harris and Ellen Burstyn, and played in the long-running hit The Vagina Monologues. Off-Broadway, she starred as the legendary Tallulah Bankhead in her own Tallulah Hallelujah!, which was chosen as one of the Ten Best Plays of the Year by USA Today. Among other roles, Ms. Feldshuh has portrayed Diana Vreeland in Full Gallop, Jean Brodie in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, Sarah Bernhardt, Stella Adler, Sophie Tucker, Katharine Hepburn, three queens of Henry VIII and nine Jews from birth to death in Off-Broadways Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh.
Film audiences recognize Ms. Feldshuh from Fox Searchlights Kissing Jessica Stein, for which she won the Golden Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress; A Walk On The Moon with Diane Lane and Viggo Mortensen; Happy Accidents with Marisa Tomei, The Corruptor with Mark Wahlberg, Daniel, The Idolmaker (Dir. Taylor Hackford), Brewsters Millions, Cheaper to Keep Her, Three Little Wolfs, Friends and Family, Old Love, Nunzio, The Believer, Life On The Ledge, The Alchemist, Toll Booth (winner Best Supporting Actress – Method Fest 2005), among others. Most recently she appeared onscreen in Lady in the Water for M. Night Shyamalan opposite Paul Giamatti and Just My Luck with Lindsay Lohan. Films soon to be released include Mount Of Olives with F. Murray Abraham, O Jerusalem with Ian Holm and Tom Conti, in which she plays Golda Meir, and Love Life for Maria Schrader.
On television, she received her first Emmy nomination for her portrayal of the Czech freedom fighter Helena in Holocaust. She starred opposite Tommy Lee Jones in The Amazing Howard Hughes, James Woods in Citizen Cohn, Bill Cosby on The Cosby Mysteries and The Cosby Show and Richard Dreyfuss in The Education Of Max Bickford. In 2004 she was nominated for her second Emmy for her work on Law & Order as defense attorney Danielle Melnick.
Two seasons ago her one-woman show, Tovah: Out Of Her Mind!, sold out in Londons West End at the Duke Of Yorks and culminated in a symphonic concert with Billy Crystal at Los Angeles Royce Hall. The Boston Globe selected Tovah: Out Of Her Mind! as the best one-person show of 2000. Ms. Feldshuh created a new concert entitled Mining Golda: My Journey to Golda Meir which just played the West End at the Savoy Theatre, the Sheridan Suites in Manchester, and the Royal Armouries in Leeds. On the West Coast she starred at the Ahmanson as Regina in Lillian Hellmans Another Part Of The Forest and served as a leading lady for Jack OBrien and Craig Noel at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego in such shows as Romeo and Juliet, Two Gentlemen Of Verona, Measure For Measure, The Country Wife and Tovah: A Rush Hour Revue, where she was named an Associate Artist and won two Drama Logue Awards for her Juliet and for her first one-woman show.
Ms. Feldshuh, a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, has taught at Yale, Cornell and New York Universities and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in June, 2005. She is a supporter of Seeds Of Peace, a non-profit, nonpolitical organization that helps teenagers from regions of conflict and is the recipient of the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitas Award and the Israel Peace Medal. Ms. Feldshuh is married to New York attorney, Andrew Harris Levy. The have two children, Garson Brandon and Amanda Claire.
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