2009 Tony Award Nominees: 'Best Performance By A Featured Actress In A Play'

Hallie Foote ("Mary Jo" in Dividing the Estate)
LCT: The Carpetbagger's Children (Drama League Award). Off-Broadway: Dividing the Estate (Richard Seff Award), The Day Emily Married, When They Speak of Rita (Primary Stages); The Trip to Bountiful (Lucille Lortel Award, Best Supporting Actress), The Last of the Thorntons (Drama League Award), Talking Pictures, Night Seasons, Laura Dennis (Signature); The Roads to Home (Obie Award), The Widow Claire (Circle in the Square). Regional: The Carpetbagger's Children (Alley Theatre, Hartford Stage and Guthrie Theater), The Death of Papa (PlayMakers Rep), God's Pictures (Indiana Rep). Film: 1918, On Valentine's Day, Courtship, Walking to the Waterline. TV: producer of "Lily Dale" (Showtime/Hallmark Hall of Fame). Other awards: Drama Desk Award for the 1995 Horton Foote season at the Signature Theatre.

Jessica Hynes ("Annie" in The Norman Conquests)
Jessica Hynes co-wrote and co-starred in "Spaced" on Channel 4, which won her the Best Female Comedy Newcomer Award at the British Comedy Awards in 2000. She was nominated for the BAFTA Best Actress Award for the film Tomorrow La Scala and was nominated for the 2003 Best Performance in a Supporting Role Olivier Award for The Night Heron at the Royal Court. Other theatre credits: The Plough and the Stars and Fiddler on the Roof, both directed by Matthew Warchus at West Yorkshire Playhouse. TV: "The Royle Family" and "Doctor Who". Film: Son of Rambow, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and Shaun of the Dead.

Marin Ireland ("Steph" in reasons to Be pretty)
New York credits include: Blasted (Soho Rep), Cyclone (Studio Dante, 2006 OBIE for Performance), The Beebo Brinker Chronicles (4th Street, 37 Arts), Bad Jazz (The Play Company), The Ruby Sunrise (Public Theater), The Harlequin Studies (Signature), The Triple Happiness (Second Stage), Manuscript (Daryl Roth), Fighting Words (Underwood), Savannah Bay (Classic Stage), Where We're Born (Rattlestick), the title role in Sabina (Primary Stages), Far Away and Nocturne (both at New York Theatre Workshop). Royal Court's American tour of Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis. Regional work includes Mauritius (Huntington Theatre, IRNE Award, Elliot Norton nomination), Heartbreak House (Goodman), The Bells (McCarter), Uncle Vanya (Lake Lucille), As You Like It (Commonwealth Shakespeare) and Richard Greenberg's new play The Injured Party (South Coast Rep). Film/TV: "Law & Order" trifecta, I Am Legend, The Understudy, The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, Suburban Girl, Rachel Getting Married and others.

Angela Lansbury ("Madame Arcati" in Blithe Spirit)
Angela Landsbury, who last appeared on Broadway in Deuce, has enjoyed a career without precedent. Her professional career spans more than a half-century, during which she has flourished, first as a star of motion pictures, then as a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway musical star and most recently as the star of "Murder, She Wrote," the longest-running detective drama series in the history of television. The actress made her Broadway debut in 1957 when she starred as Bert Lahr's wife in the French farce, Hotel Paradiso. In 1960, she returned to Broadway as Joan Plowright's mother in the season's most acclaimed drama, A Taste of Honey, by Shelagh Delaney. One year later, she starred on Broadway in her first musical, Anyone Can Whistle. Lansbury returned to New York in triumph in 1966 as Mame, for which she won the first of her unprecedented four Tony Awards as Best Actress in a Musical. She received the others as the Madwoman of Chaillot in Dear World (1968), as Mama Rose in the 1974 revival of Gypsy and as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd (1979). From 1984-1996 she starred as Jessica Fletcher, mystery-writing amateur sleuth, on "Murder, She Wrote," for which she won four Golden Globe Awards. In 1982, she was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame, and in 1994 she was named a Commander of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. Angela and her husband Peter were married in 1949. They worked together until Peter's death in January 2003. Angela has three grown children, Deirdre, Anthony and David, and three grandchildren.

Amanda Root ("Sarah" in The Norman Conquests)
Amanda Root recently appeared on stage at the Almeida in Enemies and Conversations After a Burial. Other theatre includes The Plough and the Stars at West Yorkshire Playhouse and extensive work at the RSC. TV: "The Robber Bride" (Working Title), Dolly in "Anna Karenina" (C4) and Adela in "The House of Bernarda Alba" (C4). Film: Enduring Love, Whatever Happened to Harold Smith, Persuasion, Jane Eyre.