Stage and screen actress Marsha Mercant

San Francisco-based actress Marsha Mercant will star as the original singing nun, Maria von Trapp, in the 2005 John Muir Summer Festival production of The Sound of Music July 13-30 at the John Muir Amphitheater in Martinez.

Ms. Mercant has extensive acting experience ranging from stage to television, from film to voice-over and recording. She has delighted audiences from New York to Los Angeles, from Las Vegas to Beijing. 

A large part of her career was spent in Los Angeles, working in many different media. She appeared in numerous television episodics including Hawaii Five-0, Battlestar Galactica, From Here to Eternity, Buck Rogers, and TJ Hooker as well as commercials for Chevrolet, Legg's Pantyhose, IAMS Pet Foods, and many others. 

Marsha also starred in the 1st National Companies of Cats and Les Miserables under the helm of the Royal Shakespeare Company's renowned directors Trevor Nunn and John Caird.  She also had the honor of working with such musical greats as Ethel Merman, Frankie Avalon, The Pointer Sisters, and Chita Rivera and toured the United States with Robert Goulet.  She also worked with the legendary Mickey Mouse when she was contracted by Disney World in Florida. 

While living in the San Francisco Bay Area, Marsha has continued to work as an actress on stage as well as in commercials, industrial films and television and radio voice-overs.  Ms. Mercant is an eight-time  Drama Logue/Dean Goodman Choice Performance award winner and a four-time Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award nominee.  She has starred in such shows as Center Rep's productions of Heartbeats and Tomfoolery; the legendary Jerry Herman's musical revue Tune the Grand Up; and several productions for 42nd Street Moon including As Thousands Cheer, Do I Hear a Waltz? and Finian's Rainbow. 

Her multi-award-winning performance as Liza in Lady in the Dark with the Marin Theatre Company was later reprised in Beijing, China, where she was honored to star in the first-ever-produced American musical theatre in the People's Republic. 

Ms. Mercant has also had the honor of starring in two world premiere pieces written by award-winning composer Craig Bohmler and Tony-nominated playwright Mary Bracken Phillips. Mountain Days, The John Muir Musical premiered at the Chronicle Pavilion, a 12,000-seat outdoor venue in Concord, California, and spawned a CD of the same name. 

Marsha has also been heard on radio and television, advertising goods for Challenge Butter, Amazon.com, American Musical Theatre of San Jose, San Jose Mercury News, Harrah's, America West Airlines, Diamond Walnuts, BrainConnection.com, ABC, NBC, Visa, Clorox, and countless others too numerous to mention. 

She has also appeared in educational videos for Cisco Systems, Sybase, Hewlett-Packard, Apple Computer, Web TV, Archipelago Distance Learning, the U.S. Navy, Siemens, and dozens of others. 

One of Marsha's favorite roles is that of wife to the dashing John Howard Swain, with whom she ran the highly successful acting school and production company Full Circle Productions - just recently closed after 11 fantastic years in San Francisco.  Next on their excellent adventure...a move to New York City to see what life has in store!

Marsha Mercant - along with "raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens" – surely a favorite of the John Muir Festival.