Isabel Keating

Isabel Keating is an American actress and singer born on May 1, 1961, in Savannah, Georgia, to a Southern father and a Moroccan mother. Her Broadway career spans from 2002 to 2025, encompassing musicals, plays, and replacement roles across a range of productions. She won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical and a Theatre World Award, both in 2004, and received a Tony Award nomination for the same performance.

Growing up with a mixed cultural background, Keating developed an early facility for mimicking accents and eventually became fluent in multiple languages. She initially anticipated a career as an interpreter before turning to theater in her early twenties. Her first professional theatrical work was with the Little Theatre of Savannah Mini-Rep Company, where she performed children's theatre as early as the winter of 1983.

Keating made her Broadway debut in 2003 in the play The Enchanted April, taking over the role of Rose Arnott from Molly Ringwald. She had previously originated the leading role of Lotty Wilton in the play's world-premiere production at Hartford Stage Company in Hartford, Connecticut. Later that same year, she appeared in The Boy From Oz opposite Hugh Jackman, who played Peter Allen, with Keating portraying Judy Garland. The performance earned her a Tony Award nomination, a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical, and a Theatre World Award.

In June 2006, Keating joined the Broadway cast of Hairspray, directed by Jack O'Brien, playing Velma Von Tussle and remaining with the production through August 2007. She subsequently appeared in Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, directed by Julie Taymor, in the role of Aunt May alongside other characters. From 2014 to 2015, she was part of the Broadway cast of Terrence McNally's It's Only a Play, also directed by Jack O'Brien. After performing the role of Madame Morrible on the U.S. National Tour of Wicked, she brought the character to Broadway from January through November 2018. In 2024, Keating returned to Broadway in Doubt: A Parable, initially engaged as the understudy for Sister Aloysius before stepping into the role during early previews when Tyne Daly departed the production following a medical emergency. Her Broadway credits also include The Queen of Versailles.

Beyond Broadway, Keating has worked extensively in regional and nonprofit theater. She won the 2000 Helen Hayes Award for Best Actress for her portrayal in Tom Stoppard's Indian Ink at the Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C. She appeared at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, Connecticut, in Stoppard's Travesties opposite Sam Waterston, and at Theatre Previews at Duke in Gore Vidal's On the March to the Sea alongside Chris Noth, Charles Durning, Richard Easton, Michael Learned, and Harris Yulin. At the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey, she performed in Wendy Kesselman's stage adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank. In 2005, she played the Duchess of Berwick in Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan, directed by Moisés Kaufman, at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts. She also appeared as Vi in the American premiere of Lucinda Coxon's Waiting at the Water's Edge, directed by Nela Wagman for the Watermark Theatre Company.

In film, Keating co-starred in Indignation, the feature directorial debut of James Schamus, based on Philip Roth's novel and starring Logan Lerman and Sarah Gadon. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2016 and was released theatrically on July 29, 2016. Her other film appearances include The Nanny Diaries and The Life Before Her Eyes. On television, she has guest-starred in episodes of 3 lbs in 2006, Law & Order: Criminal Intent in 2008, The Path in 2016, and New Amsterdam in 2021.