Allison Janney Guest Stars on USA's 'In Plain Sight' with Moreno & Weber

Broadway veteran and 'West Wing' alumna, Allison Janney is set to guest star on USA Network's drama series "In Plain Sight" alongside Rita Moreno and Steven Weber. Janney will play a newly-appointed US Marshal for the district who butts heads with Mary (Mary McCormack) in the two episode stint.

Season 3 of 'In Plain Sight' premieres March 31 on a Wednesday. The series revolves around Mary Shannon, a Deputy United States Marshal attached to the Albuquerque, office of the Federal Witness Security Program, more commonly known as the Federal Witness Protection Program. Shannon must find ways to balance her professional life of protecting witnesses, her professional relationship with her partner, Marshall Mann, and her problematic personal life. The show is filmed and based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Allison Janney has appeared on stage as well as in numerous film and television roles. Film roles include 'Juno', 'Hairspray', 'Away We Go', 'Nurse Betty', 'American Beauty', and '10 Things I Hate About You'. Janney's most notable television role was on the Aaron Sorkin political drama , 'The West Wing' where she played press secretary C.J. Cregg from 1999-2006; a role which garnered Janney for Emmy wins and four Golden Globe award nominations. Janney's theatre credits include her 1996 Broadway debut in Present Laughter opposite Frank Langella, the 1998 production 'A View from the Bridge' for which she was nominated for a Tony Award, and most recently she played the role of 'Violet Newstead' in the Broadway musical '9 to 5' based on the 1980 film which starred Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. Janney was nominated for a Tony Award for her role as Violet and she won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical.

Rita Moreno is the first actress, and remains the only Latina, to win an Emmy, a Grammy, a Tony, and an Oscar. Moreno moved to New York City with her mother when she was five years old; by eleven, she was lending her voice to Spanish-language versions of American films and by thirteen had landed her first role on Broadway as "Angelina" in Skydrift. Her acting caught the attention of several Hollywood talent scouts. While she performed small roles in films such as Singin' in the Rain, her career took off when she was cast as "Anita" in Robert Wise's film adaptation of Leonard Bernstein's and Stephen Sondheim's groundbreaking Broadway musical, West Side Story. It was for this performance that Moreno won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award in 1962. She would later receive the Grammy Award for Best Recording for Children (1972), the Tony Award for Best Featured or Supporting Actress in The Ritz (1975), and two Emmys for her appearances on The Muppet Show (1977) and The Rockford Files (1978). Currently a Bay Area resident, Moreno recently starred in a new cabaret show in San Francisco in November 2008.

Weber first appeared on Broadway in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing and in 2001-2002 took over for Matthew Broderick as Leo Bloom in the Broadway production of The Producers. In 2005, he appeared alongside Kevin Spacey in London at the Old Vic's production of National Anthems. Weber also wrote and produced 2003's Clubland, a Showtime movie in which he and Alan Alda played father and son talent agents in 1950s New York City (for which Alda was nominated for an Emmy). He recently appeared in another Stephen King adaptation, You Know They Got a Hell of a Band from the Nightmares & Dreamscapes mini-series. In 1996-1998, he played the voice of Charlie B. Barkin in the All Dogs Go to Heaven TV series, and he appeared again as Charlie in the Christmas special, An All Dogs Christmas Carol.

 

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.

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