Roles That Resonate

FROM BROADWAY TO THE BERKSHIRES, ANNETTE MILLER SHINES 

By Laura Mars

ANNETTE MILLER has wowed audiences in roles from Golda Meir, the first female prime minister of Israel, to legendary Greek-American soprano Maria Callas. She has appeared on Broadway and has been awarded two Elliot Norton awards, including a Special Citation in 2024 for her body of work and her sold-out reprisal of Golda’s Balcony at Shakespeare & Company and at Boston’s Emerson Paramount Center. 

Miller’s talents go well beyond the stage. She has appeared on TV (such as a regular on As the World Turns) and film (Don’t Look Up, The Next Karate Kid, The Company Men, and many others). On June 28, the spotlight is on her once again, as the guest of honor at Shakespeare & Company’s annual gala alongside legendary classical actor John Douglas Thompson. 

“Being honored is very humbling,” says Miller, whose first performance with Shakespeare & Company was in 1997. “It celebrates not only a culmination of my work, but of opening up a whole new world to me about the poetry of language. Shakespeare made it possible for me to put all parts of my life together.” 

In 1992, she and her husband, Michael Miller, lawyer, co-founder of Firestone Financial Group, and longtime Shakespeare board member, were looking for a vacation house not too far from their home in Boston. They found a property that once belonged to The Mount, where Shakespeare & Company had its first home. The renovation of Edith Wharton’s icehouse and barn became the perfect respite for the Millers and their growing family. 

“When I joined the company, work was literally in my backyard,” says Miller, who stars in the upcoming world premiere of Lawrence Goodman’s The Victim. The play, which runs from June 19 to July 20, opens Shakespeare & Company’s 48th season. 

Although performing at Shakespeare & Company may not be all that Miller is best known for, the theater company is her artistic home. She has been there for nearly 30 seasons, and her stand-out moments include creating the lead role in Golda’s Balcony in 2002, playing a formidable mother in Mothers and Sons in 2018, and spiraling into a grandmother with dementia in The Waverly Gallery in 2020— all award-winning performances. 

It was a delight not only to listen to Miller talk about her artistic journey, but also to witness her reciting lines from her past roles during our talk. It’s no surprise that her passion for acting began at a young age. After attending a performing arts high school, receiving her BA and MFA at Brandeis University, and studying with Stella Adler, she landed roles on Broadway, off-Broadway, and in regional companies, including in a few Shakespeare plays. It wasn’t until she had her home in Lenox, however, that she found herself attending Shakespeare & Company’s intense training program. 

Her earliest plays at Shakespeare & Company included Ethan Frome and Merchant of Venice. She has performed in Richard III, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, and King John. As Miller talks, her favorites rise to the top, including The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife (2012), Martha Mitchell Calling (2020), and last summer’s Winter’s Tale. Her most famous role, however, is Golda Meir in Golda’s Balcony, which follows the life of Israel’s fourth prime minister. Meir was also Israel’s first and only female head of government and the first in the Middle East. She was in office when Arab coalition forces launched a surprise attack on Israel in 1973 on the Jewish Holy Day of Yom Kippur, and her decisions surrounding that event loom large in Golda’s Balcony, which was written by William Gibson. 

Not only is the story captivating, but so is the making of the play. 

“When Bill showed me the script, I was nervous,” recalls Miller. “The turning point of the play takes place on the balcony in Dimona, where Golda observed the building of the nuclear weapons. I didn’t know if that secretive nuclear facility was public knowledge, and I didn’t want to spill the beans! I was also concerned that I don't look like Golda, but Bill was not talking about what Golda looked like at all. He was talking about her struggles, her input into the formation of the state, who she was. I did ask for her shoes, though, and Danny gave me her bag. She was never without that bag.” Although the shoes and bag were facsimiles, they did the trick. 

Director Daniel Gidron, who grew up in Israel with Meir, told Miller, “You come in as Annette, you step into those shoes, pick up the pocketbook, and you’re Golda. It’s a magical moment.” The first lines of the play are “No wig, no false nose, no swollen leg. Use your imagination. Golda Meir for tonight.” 

Miller recalls the difference between performing in that first production of Golda’s Balcony and the reprisals in August 2023 at Shakespeare & Company and in February and March 2024 in Boston, especially after October 7, 2023, the date of the Hamas-led attack on Israel. The line “Half my cabinet generals, and not one of them could think yesterday that today it's war” silenced the house, as it silenced me as Miller recited it. 

The Victim is another story Miller wants to tell. Its three characters—a Holocaust survivor played by Miller, her doctor daughter, and her health aide—tell conflicting stories through three monologues. It was presented as a staged reading last year to such great reception that Allyn Burrows, Shakespeare & Company’s artistic director, immediately gave it a full production slot in this year’s lineup. 

“My character is so beautifully written,” says Miller. “It’s so poetic; the imagery is concise, yet it packs a punch. There is a definite rhythm to the language that is Shakespearean.” 

Playwright Lawrence Goodman says the idea for the play was inspired by conversations about DEI and the sense that many groups, including Jews, feel victimized. The Victim explores what it means to be a victim and how our identity affects what we hear when we speak to other people, trying to find a way that people could connect through a situation of true hatred. 

Annette Miller as Golda Meir.

Is there a clear victim in The Victim? “It’s less about an answer than it is a question,” says Goodman. “The play is like a prism that shifts as it goes forward, constantly asking you to reevaluate what you've heard and are hearing.” 

“The title of the play is very ironic,” says Gidron, the play’s director. “Almost every perpetrator considers themselves victims. It’s interesting how The Victim’s three stories intersect. I love Lawrence’s writing, and Annette is terrific, a fearless actor who's always curious and very committed.” 

Indeed. Actor David Gow, who has performed with Shakespeare & Company since 2018, worked with Miller in Mothers and Sons, The Waverley Gallery, and Winter’s Tale. “Annette Miller is always the most invested person in the room,” says Gow. “It should be the other way around, but Annette, the one with the most experience, the least to prove and who could phone it in and still make everyone happy, has a fire under her at all times. She advocates for her characters, using the process and taking the time to figure out every single detail.” 

What’s next for Miller? “There are still many stories to be told,” she says. In addition to The Victim, Miller also will be in the staged readings at Shakespeare & Company’s Jewish Play Festival from October 10 to 12. She is considering reprising Now Is Our Time, a work she created as a scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis, for its 25th anniversary this year. It also played at Berkshire Theater Group in 2015. 

Although there are no plans to remount Golda’s Balcony, I get the sense that Miller wouldn’t say “no” to another reprisal, reflecting that today’s world would do well to hear Meir’s passion and commitment to do the right thing. 

For the immediate future, she is happy to be at Shakespeare & Company. “It’s an exciting place to be, an entire creative environment,” she says. “What could be better than that?”

Gala 2025, honoring Annette Miller and John Douglas Thompson, Saturday, June 28, 5 p.m., Shakespeare & Company.

The Victim by Lawrence Goodman, World Premiere, June 19–July 20, Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre.

Jewish Play Festival: Dynamic Staged Readings, October 10–12, Tina Packer Playhouse.

shakespeare.org