Acting Career
She began her career at age 17 as a comedic singer (and waitress) at The Improvisation and at age 19 at Catch a Rising Star in New York.
She worked at both through the early 1980s, and at the same time performed in NY's major cabaret rooms including: The NY Playboy Club, The Continental Baths, Reno Sweeney's (where she was the opening act for Reverend Al Carmines in 1974 and Peter Allen in 1975), Les Mouches, The Grand Finale, Freddy's Supper Club, Ted Hook's OnStage, and Lox Around the Clock.
She studied under Stella Adler in the early 1980s, and appeared at the 92nd Street Y in New York in the prestigious Lyrics and Lyricists program in 1985, directed by Maurice Levine. It was there that she caught the eye (and ear) of Elly Stone, who remembered her voice in 1987 when she and her husband Eric Blau (who translated Brel's Flemish lyrics into English) were casting for their upcoming 20th anniversary production of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. She starred in the 1988 production of that show with Karen Akers at Town Hall in New York and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. She has also played several minor movie roles, including the films Taking Off (1971), Garbo Talks (1984), The Flamingo Kid (1984), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), and Crossing Delancey (1988), and on the television shows Kate & Allie and The Guiding Light.
In 1990, she won the Backstage Bistro Award for Best Vocalist in New York City.
Read more about this topic: Shelley Ackerman
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