Born in London, England, to American parents, she was raised in western New York until the age of eighteen. During that time, she discovered a talent for live theater, winning her first leading role as Helena in her high school's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." With a monologue from that play, she was selected as a finalist in the English-Speaking Union National Shakespeare Competition at Lincoln Center. Her involvement in theater continued through her years at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, where, among other projects, she adapted Jane Austen's "Northanger Abbey" for the stage. In addition to her occasional film and television work--which has included three electronic field trips with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and a featured dancer role on AMC's "TURN: Washington's Spies"--she is a professor of early American history, an interpreter in Colonial Williamsburg's evening programs, and a regional coordinator for the Jane Austen Society of North America. Show less «