Barbara Walsh

Barbara Walsh (born June 3, 1955) is an American musical theatre actress who has appeared in several prominent Broadway productions. Walsh is known for her Drama Desk Award and Tony nominated role as Trina in the Broadway production of Falsettos.

Biography

Personal life and early work

Walsh grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland. She took voice lessons with Margaret Riddleberger. She attended Georgetown Visitation, an all-girls Catholic high school and Montgomery College, where she studied drama and music. After college Walsh worked in dinner theatre and summer stock in Warsaw, Indiana. She performed in Forbidden Broadway in the mid-1980s. She is married to Jack Cummings III, the artistic director of Transport Group Theatre Company.

Work

Walsh appeared on Broadway in the short lived musical Big (1996), based on the Penny Marshall film starring Tom Hanks. She was in the 2006-2007 Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's Company, playing the role of Joanne. This production was also taped for television and aired on PBS in February 2008. She has also appeared on Broadway in Rock 'n Roll! The First 5,000 Years (1982), Nine as Francesca, as Mrs. Lyons in Blood Brothers (1993), and as Velma Von Tussle in Hairspray. Her Off-Broadway credits include Birds of Paradise (1987), Stars in Your Eyes (1999) and the Transport Group musical Normal (2005).

Barbara Walsh (journalist)

Barbara Ann Walsh (born August 13, 1958) is an American journalist and writer of children's books. She has worked for The Eagle-Tribune (Lawrence, MA), Portland Press Herald, and South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and has taught journalism at Florida International University, University of Southern Maine, and University of Maine at Augusta. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for a series she wrote for the Eagle-Tribune about the Massachusetts prison system. Barbara has also worked as an international speaker for the U.S. Department of State.

Career

Walsh worked with Susan Forrest to publish over 175 articles for the Eagle-Tribune on the furlough system of the Massachusetts state prisons under Michael Dukakis, including the Willie Horton case. The system allowed convicted felons to leave prison for short periods. After the series appeared, the Massachusetts legislature passed a statute limiting furlough days. The Eagle-Tribune staff won a Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting in 1988 citing it is "an investigation that revealed serious flaws in the Massachusetts prison furlough system and led to significant statewide reforms."