Patricia Conolly is an Australian actress and director who has made a career on three continents: Australia, Britain, and North America (Canada and the United States).  Companies encompassed include:  APA-Phoenix Repertory, Arena Stage, Arizona Theatre Company, George Street Playhouse, Hartford Stage Company, Long Wharf, The Mark Taper Forum, The Old Globe Theatre, Philadelphia Drama Guild, Seattle Repertory Company, Theatre Memphis, Tyrone Guthrie Theater, and Westport Country Playhouse.  Off-Broadway shows include:  YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1963), WE, COMRADES THREE (1966), RIGHT YOU ARE IF YOU THINK YOU ARE (1966), SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL (1966), THE WILD DUCK (1967), WAR AND PEACE (1967), PANTAGLEIZE (1967), THE MISANTHROPE (1968), THE COCKTAIL PARTY (1968), THE CHERRY ORCHARD (1968), EXIT THE KING (1968), COCK-A-DOODLE DANDY (1969), A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1973), THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST (1977),  WOMAN IN MIND (1988), A SMALL FAMILY BUSINESS (1992), THE REAL INSPECTOR HOUND (1992), THE FIFTEEN MINUTE HAMLET (1992), DON’T DRESS FOR DINNER (1992), HEDDA GABLER (1994), THE HEIRESS (1995), TARTUFFE (1996), MISALLIANCE (1997), HOUSE/GARDEN (2002), THE COAST OF UTOPIA (2006), AGAINST THE RISING SEA (2006) OLDFRIENDS.COM (2009), GABRIEL (2010), THE NEW YORK IDEA (2011), BEYOND THE HORIZON (2012), OUTSIDE MULLINGAR (2014), BABY DOLL (2015), THE BELLE OF BELFAST (2015), and RASHEEDA SPEAKING (2015).  These shows were done at Lincoln Center, Signature Theatre, The Irish Repertory Theatre, The McCarter Theatre Center, Lucille Lortel Theatre, Atlantic Theater Company, Manhattan Theatre Club, Roundabout Theatre Company, Circle in the Square, and many more.  She was named Associate Artist of The Old Globe in 2010.

Patricia (Trish) never thought of acting as a job one could be paid for.  As a child of an Anglican priest and deeply church - involved family in Sydney, Australia, she went to a progressive school in New South Wales where all arts, including drama, were integral to the curriculum and flowers were given as incentives.  She thought of it as great fun without a future.  Showing off was a sin in her family.  Yet, she loved the attention she received when she was the Virgin Mary in kindergarten, and that sense of acceptance and power never left her.  She joined Drama Club (SUDS) at Sydney University, was seen in Hedda Gabler and offered a professional job as Emily in Our Town in Melbourne, along with soon to be famous Zoe Caldwell and Barry Humphries.  Then, without an agent or auditioning she was offered the following season at that theater.  She told the producer her salary didn’t matter as it was a ‘fill in job’ and they were furious at her.  From then on she began to see theater as a possible, sustainable way of life.  Her early theaters in Australia had much the same scrappy character as the Off-Broadway companies she would later encounter once in America.  She felt at home.  Broadway came calling but she shunned that experience preferring the wide-open possibilities Off-Broadway had to offer.  Once on Broadway, though, she delighted in ‘the club’ to which she now had been brought into. She has worked in both worlds ever since.  On Broadway, her shows include: Blithe Spirit, The Circle, Waiting In The Wings, Judgment at Nuremberg, Sound of Music, Enchanted April, Is He Dead?,  andThe Front Page.  From 1969 to 2008 she was a company member each season at The Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, and The Stratford Ontario Shakespeare Festival Theatre from 1980 to 1990, and The Hartford Stage Company from 1981 to 1989.  In the United Kingdom she played on The West End, The Chichester Festival Theatre, The Hampstead Theatre Club, The Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford East, The Welsh National Theatre; and in Australia: The Melbourne Theatre Company from 1970 to 1999, The Sydney Theatre Company, The Trust Players from 1957 to 1965, Union Repertory Theatre Melbourne from 1957 to 1965, The Palace Theatre, Sydney.  She has directed plays at Bagaduce Theatre, The Old Globe, Juilliard, Monomoy Theatre, Florida Atlantic University, North Carolina School of The Arts, and she has taught at Boston University.