Dorothy Emmerson is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 actress and singer who was active in the New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 scene during the 1960s and 1970s. She first appeared in the ensembles of the original 1963 Vernon Duke

Vernon Duke

Vernon Duke was a Russian-American composer/songwriter, who also wrote under his original name Vladimir Dukelsky. He is best known for "Taking a Chance on Love" with lyrics by Ted Fetter and John Latouche, "I Can't Get Started" with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, "April in Paris" with lyrics by E. Y...

 musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 Zenda

Zenda (musical)

Zenda is a musical with a book by Everett Freeman, lyrics by Lenny Adelson, Sid Kuller, and Martin Charnin, and music by Vernon Duke.Based on the 1894 Anthony Hope novel The Prisoner of Zenda, it sets the action in contemporary times and transforms the protagonist into British song-and-dance man...

and the 1965 Lincoln Center Revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein

Rodgers and Hammerstein

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were a well-known American songwriting duo, usually referred to as Rodgers and Hammerstein. They created a string of popular Broadway musicals in the 1940s and 1950s during what is considered the golden age of the medium...

's Carousel

Carousel (musical)

Carousel is the second stage musical by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II . The work premiered in 1945 and was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play Liliom, transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline...

. She next starred for a couple years in the long running Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

 production The Mad Show

The Mad Show

The Mad Show is an Off-Broadway musical revue based on Mad Magazine. The music is by Mary Rodgers, the book by Larry Siegel and Stan Hart. The show's various lyricists include Siegel, Marshall Barer, Steven Vinaver, and Stephen Sondheim.-Production:...

at the New Theater

New Theatre (New York City)

The New Theatre was an Off-Broadway theatre in New York City that was active during the 1960s and 1970s. Located at 154 E 54th St, the theatre opened in 1964 with the American premiere of Ann Jellicoe's The Knack...

. In 1968 she portrayed her first featured role on Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

, Eileen Higby in the original production of Paul Nassau

Paul Nassau

Paul Nassau is an American composer and lyricist for the stage. He contributed songs to the musical revue New Faces of 1956, and wrote both the music and lyric to the Broadway shows Happy Town , A Joyful Noise , and The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N . He married Chloe Anderson on December 23,...

 and Oscar Brand

Oscar Brand

Oscar Brand is a folk singer, songwriter, and author. In his career, spanning over 60 years, he has composed at least 300 songs and released nearly 100 albums, among them Canadian and American patriotic songs...

's The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N. This was followed by her portrayal of Rita in the original production of John Sebastian

John Sebastian

John Benson Sebastian Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and autoharpist. He is best known as a founder of The Lovin' Spoonful, a band inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000...

's Jimmy Shine

Jimmy Shine

Jimmy Shine is an American musical with music and lyrics by John Sebastian and a musical book by Murray Schisgal. The plot of the musical centers on its title character who is a struggling artist in Greenwich Village during the 1960s...

in 1968-1969, where she shared the stage with Dustin Hoffman

Dustin Hoffman

Dustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor with a career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He has been known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and vulnerable characters....

 and Rue McClanahan

Rue McClanahan

Rue McClanahan was an American actress, best known for her roles on television as Vivian Harmon on Maude, Fran Crowley on Mama's Family, and Blanche Devereaux on The Golden Girls, for which she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in 1987.-Early life:McClanahan was born Eddie Rue...

.

In 1970 Emmerson portrayed the role of Mary in the original production of Ron Clark

Ron Clark (writer)

Ron Clark is an American playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for several plays that he co-wrote with Sam Bobrick and for co-writing the screenplays for the films Silent Movie, High Anxiety, and Life Stinks with Mel Brooks.-Career:...

 and Sam Bobrick

Sam Bobrick

Sam Bobrick is an American author, playwright, and screenwriter. He is best known for creating the television programs Good Morning, Miss Bliss and Saved By The Bell and for his numerous plays, many of which were co-authored with Ron Clark.-Biography:After an almost four year stint in the U.S...

's Norman, Is That You?

Norman, Is That You?

Norman, Is That You? is a 1970 play in two acts by American playwrights Ron Clark and Sam Bobrick about a Jewish couple coming to terms with their son's homosexuality. The work is notably the first play written by both writers. After 19 preview performances, the play officially opened on Broadway...

at the Lyceum Theatre, sharing the stage with Maureen Stapleton

Maureen Stapleton

Maureen Stapleton was an American actress in film, theater and television.-Early life:Stapleton was born Lois Maureen Stapleton in Troy, New York, the daughter of Irene and John P. Stapleton, and grew up in a strict Irish American Catholic family...

. She returned to Broadway for the last time as Arlene Miller in the 1979 play Murder at the Howard Johnson's

Murder at the Howard Johnson's

Murder at the Howard Johnson's is a 1979 play in two acts by American playwrights Ron Clark and Sam Bobrick. The production officially opened on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre after 10 preview performances on May 17, 1979; closing just three days later after only 4 more performances. The...

, standing in for Joyce Van Patten

Joyce Van Patten

Joyce Benignia Van Patten is an American stage, film and television actress.-Personal life:Van Patten was born in New York City, the daughter of Josephine Rose , an Italian American magazine advertising executive, and Richard Byron Van Patten, a Dutch American interior decorator.She is the younger...

.

After the 1970s, Emmerson has spent her career mostly teaching acting and singing. She is currently on the faculty of the Michael Chekhov Association (MICHA). A soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

, she also occasionally appears in concert and recital, often performing Russian Art Songs.

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