Positions
Biography
Brenda Ballard was born in Austin, Texas. As a shy child and lover of horses, the chance to play Black Beauty in the 6th grade play proved a perfect match, planting a seed for love of theatre and acting. She went on to get a BS in theatre from Southwest Texas State University and an MA in theatre from Memphis State University. She met her husband, Gary Ballard, playing his sister in a children’s theatre summer stock company in Memphis. She toured the U.S. and Europe for two years with The Everyman Players and one year with the Asolo Theatre out of Florida. Before coming to LA., she did summer stock in New Mexico. She was one of ten founding members of the Actors Co-op in 1987 and went on to win three Drama-Logue Performance Awards for their productions of The Traveling Lady, Tomorrow’s Monday and The Trip to Bountiful. She then captured back-to-back Ovation Award nominations for The Foreigner and Wait Until Dark. She shared the 1999 Ovation Best Play Award for Summer and Smoke at the Fountain Theatre and did Fools at Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre. One of the highlights of her life was working with the late Horton Foote at The First American Playwright’s Festival in Waco, Texas where she revisited The Traveling Lady, playing a different role. (The 2011 The Traveling Lady at Actors Co-op marked her third visit to the play.) TV credits: Days of Our Lives, Men of a Certain Age, Gilmore Girls, ER, The Nanny, Melrose Place, Who’s the Boss?, Life on Liberty Street, The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson and The Story Ladywith the late Jessica Tandy.Film: Cellular, Anderson’s CrossandThe Last Big Attraction.Finally she’s appeared in many television commercials, but her most thrilling was a spot for Honda Accord which gave her the opportunity to ride on the back of a 1500 Goldwing Motorcycle piloted by a recently retired California Highway Patrolman who let it out on a stretch of open road at 90 miles an hour.
Productions
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Actor THE TRAVELING LADY (2011) |