From Dinette to Diva

 Debra Monk is an Ohio gal, born there in 1949.

She'd moved to Silver Spring, Maryland by the time 

high school came around, 

where she was voted "Best Personality."

After scooping her Masters in Fine Arts in Dallas,

she headed to NYC,

waitressing (as so many hopefuls do) with Cass Morgan.

  "Neither one of us had agents, 

so we decided to write something, because we couldn’t get anything,

and these waitresses I was working with were so interesting.

 So we started writing about two women waitresses who were sisters.”

 At the time Morgan was married to musician Jim Wann who had a band and was writing songs about a bunch of guys who ran a gas station. 

We decided to come together for a party and sing our songs 

that we had written about the waitresses,

They sang their songs about guys who ran a gas station 

and our show became Pump Boys and Dinettes.”

 They started at the West Side Arts Theatre in 1981,

and ended up on Broadway in 1982.

 “It's prettying amazing, we wrote that show out of desperation 

because none of us could get work or agents."

Above, the original gang:

Debra, standing at the back is John Foley,

below him Jim Wann, John Schimmel with the beard,

Mark Hardwick with the accordian,

and Cass Morgan. 

 In the cast of Kander and Ebb's Steel Pier,

above with Daniel McDonald, Karen Ziemba, and Gregory Harrison,

and below...doing that great "I'm Everybody's Girl" from the show.

 Debra would earn a Tony for her performance in Redwood Curtain (1994),

 and was nominated for roles in Picnic, Steel Pier, Curtains.

 Curtains was another Kander and Ebb show (their last)

done in 2006...

and Debra played Producer Carmen Bernstein.

(Did SHE done it?)

  Other goodies for Ms. Monk:

The Bridges Of Madison County, The Devil's Advocate,

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

(and many other stage roles)

and on television...

Law & Order, NYPD Blue (an Emmy-winning role), 

Desperate Housewives, The Closer,

Damages, and Grey's Anatomy.

 Above and below,

as oboist Betty Cragdale in Mozart In The Jungle, 2014.

 

Above, a reunion concert with Cass Morgan,

Debra's Dinette sister, Rhetta Cupp, to Debra's Prudie.

 Above, in Amy And The Orphans

with Jamie Brewer and Mark Blum (one of her Mozart co-stars),

done just this past year Off-Broadway.

 In 2016, Visiting Edna, 

a David Rabe play,

done at Steppenwolf

with Ian Barford. 

Debra is presently 70 years old

and still crazy active!