Maria Dizzia

Maria Dizzia (born December 29, 1974) in Newark, New Jersey is an American actress renowned for her versatile performances on stage, screen, and television. Raised in the suburban town of Cranford, she is the daughter of Lorraine (née Bladis) and John Paul Dizzia and grew up alongside a sister, developing an early love for drama that culminated in receiving the Drama Award at Kent Place School in 1993. After high school, she pursued theater studies at Cornell University, earning a Bachelor of Arts, before honing her craft with a Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, San Diego. Dizzia’s theatrical breakthrough came with the role of Eurydice in Sarah Ruhl’s play Eurydice at the Second Stage Theatre in 2007, where her nuanced portrayal earned critical praise. She continued collaborating with Ruhl, starring in In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) on Broadway, a performance that secured her a 2010 Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play. In 2011 she originated a role in Amy Herzog’s Belleville at the Yale Repertory Theatre and later repeated it Off‑Broadway, garnering a 2013 Drama Desk Award nomination. Dizzia’s screen work includes a lauded turn in Martha Marcy May Marlene, a recurring presence on Orange Is the New Black and 13 Reasons Why, and the lead in the Oscar‑winning short The Neighbors’ Window (2019). She also appears as the mother in Owen Kline’s feature debut Funny Pages. Married to playwright Will Eno, the couple shares one child, and Dizzia continues to balance family life with a dynamic career that spans stage, film, and television.