ABOUT

Abby Rose Merrill was born in Iowa City, IA, to a violinist and a writer (her sister is a lawyer and she’s the weird one in the family). Shockingly, Iowa City was not, at the time, a hub for children’s theatre, and so Abby took matters into her own hands. She founded a production company in her basement - ‘Merrill Records’ - and mounted full-length productions with the neighborhood children, only the most committed of whom made her Board of Directors.

Since those early days, Abby has performed on stages in Chicago, California, and New York, with credits including Grease (Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace), Seussical (Marriott Theatre Lincolnshire), Army Royalty (Workshop Theatre NYC), and the reading of the Alice Bliss, a new musical by Adam Gwon, Karen Hartman, and Jenny Giering, and directed by Mark Brokaw. She has also appeared on the small screen in Netflix’s House of Cards (recurring principal) and NBC’s Chicago Med.

A trained dancer, Abby spent her junior year of high school in the full-time, professional-track Joffrey Ballet Conservatory Program, as well as summers at the San Francisco Ballet and Houston Ballet. She placed in the Top 3 at the YAGP Salt Lake City Regionals in both the Classical and Contemporary categories.

Abby spent her freshman year of college in the University of Michigan’s BFA Musical Theatre Program before transferring to Stanford University to pursue a broader liberal arts education during the pandemic. There she studied voice with Professor Kathryne Jennings, and expanded into the realm of sketch comedy with the Stanford Robber Barons Sketch Comedy, for which she wrote, directed, and performed for two years.

A proud member of Actors’ Equity and SAG-AFTRA, Abby hopes to continue performing in shows that fill audiences’ cups, and writing material that tickles the funny bone and pulls at those pesky heart strings, for as long as you’ll have her. Thank you for being here!