Sarah Marshall

Sarah Marshall (born 1955) is a stage actress working primarily in the Washington, D.C. region. She has been nominated for the Helen Hayes Award seventeen times and won the award in 1989. Early life and education Marshall was born in Kansas, the fifth of eight children in a Catholic military family. During her childhood, she lived in several places in the South. Most of her family currently resides in the south. As a child, Marshall and her siblings produced plays at their home. Marshall decided to become an actress in the seventh grade after winning a citywide monologue competition in Huntsville, Alabama. Playing the comedic role of the maid in her middle school's production of Junior Miss led her to focus on character acting. She acted throughout high school and college, graduating from Birmingham-Southern College with a degree in theater. Career beginnings Marshall moved to Washington with the intent of attending graduate school at Catholic University or American University, but enrolled in classes at the Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory instead, working as a maid to support herself. During the 1980s, Marshall performed in nine Studio Theatre productions, including a 1983 role as Jo, a pregnant waif in Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey, termed Marshall's "breakthrough performance" by friend and Studio Theatre Artistic Director Joy Zinoman. She also drew attention for her roles in Studio Theatre's Miss Margarida's Way and My Sister is in This House, for which she received her first Helen Hayes nomination.