Kate Taney Billingsley is an actor, playwright, screenwriter, poet and teaching-artist based in New York City. She received her B.A. from Emerson College with a major in Acting, along with her M.F.A. from The Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University with a concentration in Acting, where she is now a professor of Improvisational Movement and Playwright/Director Unit .
Kate is a Lifetime Member of The Actors Studio. She most recently played Sylvia in Barefoot, (a play she wrote in one evening, which subsequently ran for six weeks, with a three week extension at The Gene Frankel Theater). Kate has worked at the Actors Studio under the tutelage of her mentors Estelle Parsons and Ellen Burstyn; along with training from Mark Rylance, Elizabeth Kemp and Artistic Director of The Actors Studio, Beau Gravitte.
Kate’s play A Man of His Time, based on the legacy of the Dred Scott Decision, was directed by Estelle Parsons and ran for two weekends in May 2016 at The Actors Studio and was featured in the New York Times. The play is also featured on Playing On Air and stars Sam Waterston and John Douglas Thompson. The play was inspiration for Radio Lab’s spinoff show More Perfect episode American Pendulum II.
Kate is currently workshopping American Rot (the full-length version of A Man of His Time) at the Actors Studio with Estelle Parsons, once again, at the helm. Kate believes in art as a form of activism and looks forward to sharing this play and many more for years to come.
* Kate Taney Billingsley is one of two recipients of the 2018 Theater Hall of Fame’s Emerging Artist Fellowship and received the National Judicial College’s Award for Justice and Service.
Kate Taney Billingsley 