Linney was five years out of Brown University when she made her Broadway debut in John Guare’s play in 1991. She took over the role of Tess, the rebellious, take-charge daughter of a rich New York art dealer and his wife duped by a charismatic con man. The show put Linney one degree of separation from Anthony Rapp, who played the role of Ben on stage and in the film version.

Linney played a confrontational German art critic in the 1992 Off-Broadway premiere of Donald Margulies’s drama about a hotshot artist who reconnects with his first love. Linney won a coveted Theatre World Award — and forged a lasting link to the play and the writer.

When Sight Unseen moved to Broadway in 2004 under the direction of Daniel Sullivan (with whom she's collaborated many times since), Linney played the artist’s former flame and scored Best Actress nods at the Tony and Drama Desk Awards.

Linney’s versatility and ability to portray contemporary and period characters — like Wendy Byrde in Ozark and Abigail Adams in John Adams — keep her busy. In the 1992 Broadway revival of The Seagull, she played the naive Nina in a cast that included Ethan Hawke as Konstantin and Tony winner Danny Burstein as the workman Yakov.

In Roundabout Theatre Company’s 2000 Broadway revival of Uncle Vanya, staged by Michael Mayer, she starred as the alluring and mysterious Yelena Andreyevna.

Linney was again in period mode, with the frock to match, in the 1994 Broadway revival of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler featuring Kelly McGillis in the title role. Linney played the unhappily married, convention-flouting Thea Elvsted.

Variety’s review called out Linney’s turn as the “best performance,” adding that her Thea “conveys the fierce bravery Hedda lacks and sets out to destroy.”

Linney earned her first Tony Award nomination for this 2002 revival of Arthur Miller’s American classic drama, directed by Richard Eyre. She played Elizabeth Proctor, the virtuous but flawed farm wife accused of witchcraft, opposite Liam Neeson as her unfaithful husband.

The two stars would later share billing in a series of movies: Love Actually, Kinsey, and The Other Man, also directed by Eyre.

Ooh la la, Marquise de Merteuil! Linney let her dark side shine when she starred as the cavalier carnal manipulator in Roundabout’s 2002 Broadway revival of Christopher Hampton’s sexy drama set in 1780s France.

In 2010, Linney earned her third Tony nod playing Sarah, a New York photojournalist, in yet another drama written by Donald Margulies and directed by Daniel Sullivan. Sarah thrives on capturing the scars of war, which creates tension with her reporter boyfriend. “You can call my pictures beautiful,” she tells a friend’s girlfriend. “I think they’re beautiful. But then I’m their mother.”

Linney had the cunning idea to trade off the star part of voracious Regina Giddens and the supporting role of timid Birdie Hubbard with Cynthia Nixon every night in this 2017 revival of Lillian Hellman’s dark family drama. Sullivan, directing Linney once again, liked the idea, as did Manhattan Theatre Club, where Linney often performs. Linney was nominated for a Best Actress Tony Award and won the same prize at the Drama Desks.

Linney made her London theatre debut in this 2018 one-woman play, which Rona Munro adapted from the Elizabeth Strout novel about a writer’s relationship with her estranged mother. The city was new, but the director was familiar: Richard Eyre. Linney reprised her star turn on Broadway, scoring a Best Actress Tony nomination and a Drama Desk win for Best Solo Performance.

Linney joined Jessica Hecht and reunited once more with director Daniel Sullivan for this play by Pulitzer- and Tony-winning Proof author David Auburn. Linney played nonconformist Diana, and Hecht played naive Alice, between whom friendship and changes emerge during the U.S.'s 200th anniversary.

Linney reunites with Manhattan Theatre Club and director Daniel Sullivan for Montauk, a new drama by three-time Tony Award nominee David Hare. Linney stars as Roxy Margaux, a writer who gets personally and professionally entangled with an abstract artist. We can't wait to see the story she tells on the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre stage.

Check back for information on Montauk tickets on New York Theatre Guide.