Acting
I have an MFA in Acting, and am a proud member of Actors’ Equity.
These days, I tend to use my acting skills to narrate audiobooks. However, here are some of my favorite stage roles:
Agnes ∼ Dancing at Lughnasa
Gloucester Stage Company
“Superbly acted by an exceptional ensemble…” – Mike Hoban, The Theater Mirror
Winner, Best Play: Midsize Theater, 2019 IRNE Awards
Hermia ∼ Dead Man’s Cell Phone
Lyric Stage Company of Boston
As Gordon’s widow, Hermia, Bryn Austin creates a character who is the human equivalent of a dry martini (she reminded me of Christine Baranski’s Maryann Thorpe in “Cybill’’), yet plausible in her moments of regret at not committing herself more fully to her marriage.
–Don Aucoin, The Boston Globe
Mrs. Cheveley ∼ An Ideal Husband
The Summer Company
But the villainess herself, Bryn Austin, is the one to watch—she can be five ways wicked just sitting in a chair. –Walter Evert, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Governess ∼ The Turn of the Screw
Pitt Repertory Theatre
As both director and actor, Robert CT Steele creates the filigree setting for his jeweled center: Bryn Austin’s powerhouse performance as the governess. To fully appreciate her achievement, you have to keep in your head a snapshot of her opening scene—the fluttery, naïve woman applying or the governess job—then throw that up next to her final moments as a consumed, tortured, avenging angel—and then try to figure out how she got from one to the other, in full view, without you even realizing it. Truly remarkable. –Ted Hoover, Pittsburgh City Paper
Ensemble ∼ Love and Information
The Apron Theater, VT
Madame Arcati ∼ Blithe Spirit
Winnipesaukee Playhouse
Of note: Bryn Austin’s Madame Arcati, who seems to have risen whole from an amalgam of Carol Burnett and Beyond The Fringe sketch comedies. –Michael Curtiss, Caught in the Act
Mrs. Zero ∼ The Adding Machine
Pitt Repertory Theatre
Director Choi has done marvelous work forging an absolute lock-stepped ensemble, harrowing in their detailed, studied performances. Leading them on is the amazing work of Bryn Austin and Doug Mertz as the Zeros. Austin opens the play with a completely insane, horrifically fascinating epic monologue and she just doesn’t quit! Refusing to camp it up, wink at the material or – that dreadful actor nonsense—find “humanity” in her character, she digs down, digs deep and uses all 10 pointed fingernails to do it. It’s a compliment of the highest order to say that, thanks to her work, this character is appalling. –Ted Hoover, Pittsburgh City Paper
When the lights come up on Elmer Rice’s 1923 expressionistic play The Adding Machine, the sound you hear is like a buzz saw going through your brain. But it’s really only Mrs. Zero, a dysfunctional housewife, who is chattering on and on as she begins her day. Austin finds the scary maddening qualities of her screechy wife and plays her bullying character to perfection. –Richard Rauh, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Mrs. Prentice ∼ What the Butler Saw
Pitt Repertory Theatre
The comic style award goes to Bryn Austin, mistress of the double take. –Christopher Rawson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Dr. Halbrech ∼ Scotland Road
Winnipesaukee Playhouse
Bryn Austin and Dorothy Piquado both take the stage in strong, convincing ways- Austin as The Woman’s attending physician and Piquado as a superannuated, utterly creepy recluse who also survived the TITANIC sinking. Yet, of course, neither is quite what they’d have us believe. As the play progresses, both Austin and Piquado strip away the veneers in which their characters are encased to reveal more conflicted, and far darker, reasons for claiming to be who they are. Both women grace this play with artful performances. –Michael Curtiss, Caught in the Act
Algernon ∼ The Importance of Being Earnest
Unseam’d Shakespeare Company
Director Nona Gerard has selected the cream of Pittsburgh’s crop of actors and lets them play off each other in just the right key. Elena Passarello as Jack/Earnest and Bryn Austin as Algernon imbue their wit and movement with the perfect combination of wiliness and indecision, constantly darting to the side, stepping backward and putting on their most dashing smiles to avoid uncomfortable situations. –John Hayes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Beatrice ∼ Much Ado about Nothing
Pitt Repertory Theatre
The play’s heart is not in its young heroes at all, but its more wearied veterans of the love wars, Beatrice (Bryn Austin) and Benedict (Doug Mertz). When the story turns dark, Beatrice’s strength finds fit occasion, and it is deeply moving how Benedict finds true love in catastrophe. In their final dance, they seem a real match. –Christopher Rawson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Bryn Austin brings a vibrant, sensible approach to her Beatrice, who’s old enough for caution yet young enough to embrace the possibilities that attachment presents. –Alice T. Carter, Pittsburgh Tribune Review
Desdemona ∼ Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet
Three Rivers Shakespeare Festival / Unseam’d Shakespeare
Bryn Austin as the hell-raising Desdemona turns her tragic heroine into a laugh a minute. –Adrian McCoy, Pittsburgh Press
Aunt Polly ∼ The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Winnipesaukee Playhouse
Ruth ∼ Blithe Spirit
The Summer Company
Bryn Austin nails the smugly self-possessed wife, Ruth. We relish watching her settled, ordinary life get torn apart by circumstances she can’t control. –Alice T. Carter, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Dotty ∼ Noises Off!
Palace Theater, Manchester NH
Honors
*
New Hampshire Theatre Awards:
Finalist, Best Supporting Actress/Professional (2014)
Aunt Polly/Ensemble in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Winnipesaukee Playhouse
Finalist, Best Supporting Actress/Professional (2010)
Dr. Halbrech in Scotland Road, Winnipesaukee Playhouse
*
Alamo Theatre Arts Council GLOBE Awards:
Outstanding Production of a Comedy
Real Women Have Curves (2009)
The Clean House (2008)
Excellence in Direction
As You Like It (2006), UIW Theatre
Anton in Show Business (2005)
Leading Actress in a Drama
Elsa in The Road to Mecca, 24th Street Experiment (2006)
*
Year End Review of Theatre, Pittsburgh City Paper:
Named one of “Best Leading Actresses in 2001” for originating the role of Rachel Carson in Silent Spring: Alarums & Excursions, Pitt Repertory Theatre
Named “Hardest Working Performer in Show Business,” by Ted Hoover, Theatre Critic (2000)
*
Pittsburgh New Works Festival Award:
Best Actress, (1997)