Alumni News
ALUMNI SUCCESS

A Tony nod

Maryann Plunkett ’76 has described herself as immensely shy and admitted once that “I feel like I came to UNH — and acting — through the back door.”

But as she told UNH Magazine in 2020, her UNH professors, including Carol Lucha-Burns, Joseph Batcheller and John Edwards, saw something they thought was special and nurtured her. “I became a theatre baby!”

That theatre baby is all grown up, and after much success in TV, film and theatre, this year she was nominated for a Tony for her performance in “The Notebook,” which opened on Broadway in March.

Portrait photograph close-up view of Maryann Plunket grinning in red lipstick, dark burgundy colored outer frame and chrome-tinted inner frame prescription see through glasses, wearing a green necklace, and has on a floral decorative stylish open cardigan top with a black shirt underneath
It’s familiar territory: she won the 1986 Tony for best actress for her performance in “Me and My Girl.”

The native of Lowell, Massachusetts, majored in theatre at UNH, and has appeared in more than a dozen productions including “The Crucible,” “A Man for All Seasons” and “Agnes of God” — which was her Broadway debut.

She has appeared in film and television as well: on TV series “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “House of Cards,” and in films such as “Little Women” and “The Squid and the Whale.”

She says that while she loves television and film, she finds her favorite place on the theatrical stage.

“No matter what size your part is, you all begin on page one, line one, and you all take a curtain call together. In between, you’re collaborating to create a world that isn’t real but that you have to surrender yourself to so the audience will surrender itself as well,” she said in 2020. “When this process is working, it’s almost holy.”