Please Rewind Talent Wall

Beth Fowler

Beth Fowler’s career stretches across Broadway, film and television, with singing and character work providing a steady thread through it all. Born in Jersey City on November 1, 1940, Fowler attended Catholic schools and Caldwell University. She once planned to enter a convent, then became a music teacher, spending several years in the classroom while also performing in community theater. Her professional stage career began with a rough lesson in show business. After auditioning for Gantry in 1970, Fowler joined the chorus and understudied the lead, only for the production to close on opening night. Her next Broadway outing, Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, proved a more promising step. From there, she built substantial theater credits, including Peter Pan, Baby, Teddy & Alice and the 1989 revival of Sweeney Todd, in which she played Mrs. Lovett. She also originated the role of Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast and appeared as Marion, Peter Allen’s mother, in The Boy from Oz. Her work in Sweeney Todd and The Boy from Oz brought Tony Award nominations, with the former also earning a Drama Desk Award nomination. Movie audiences may know Fowler from Sister Act and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, where her musical background fit naturally into the ensemble. Her film work also includes Friends & Family, Did You Hear About the Morgans? and I Don’t Know How She Does It. In the animated Mulan, she contributed her voice to “Honor to Us All.” Fowler has also made guest appearances on Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Ed and Gossip Girl. In 2013, she began a recurring role as Sister Jane Ingalls in Orange Is the New Black, joining an ensemble that received the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series. Across those varied roles, Fowler has remained a versatile performer equally at home with a song, a sharp character part or the rhythms of an ensemble.