Deborah S. Craig is best known for originating the role of Marcy Park on Broadway in William Finn’s Tony award winning musical, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”, dir. by James Lapine. Based on her own over achieving childhood, it earned her critical acclaim, a Drama Desk Award and the distinction of creating the first Korean American character on Broadway.
On television, Craig has guest starred on the new Pamela Adlon / Louis Ck show “Better Things” for FX, “Son of Zorn” on Fox and Jill Solloway’s critically acclaimed Golden Globe winning comedy series “Transparent” for AmazonTV. She has also recurred as James Spader’s mysterious love interest Luli on the hit NBC drama, “The Blacklist”, as the wise cracking southern waitress Shelley on the CW’s “Hart of Dixie” and Melanie, the comic relief on the JJ Abrams’ drama “Six Degrees” on ABC. Other notable guest stints include the Lauren Lungerich pilot “Dumb Girls” for MTV (dir. David Katzenberg), the CBS/”The Bold and the Beautiful” spin off web series “Room8” and Disney’s “Dog with a Blog”.
On the big screen she was featured in Fullscreen’s “The Outfield”, Dreamworks comedy “Ghost Town”, indie farce “Bad Actress”, “Just Wright” with Queen Latifah, “Hysterical Psycho” (written and dir. by Dan Fogler) and “Big Daddy” starring Adam Sandler.
As an writer/director/producer/comedian, Craig’s original work has been featured on the homepage of FunnyorDie, Huffpo, Buzzfeed, TheBlush and ChannelApa. She has guest starred on the web series “Stupid Hype” for the CW Network (written by Hart of Dixie’s Wilson Bethel and dir. by Dugan O’Neal), “Unicorn Plan-It” for Autostraddle.com, “Honest Andy” for SoNatural and on FunnyorDie exclusives “Call Me Doctor” and “Ryan Gosling’s Acting Ranch”.
A sought after talent for her versatility, Craig has workshopped Tony Kushner’s “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide…” for The Public Theatre (dir. Michael Greif) and original work for Center Theatre Group Writers’ Workshop Retreat, La Jolla Playhouse, South Coast Rep, Chalk Rep, Barrington Stage Co., Red Bull Theatre Co., Target Margin Theatre Co., Ma-Yi Theatre Co., Soho Rep, New York Theatre Workshop, NAATCo and Project 400. Additionally, Miss Craig was the first actor/writer accepted into the Obie winning Ma-Yi Theatre Co. Writers Lab, the largest resident company of Asian-American playwrights ever assembled.
A singer, songwriter Craig’s original songs have been licensed for the feature films “Reading by Braille” and “Purity”. Her original song “I’m a L-L-L-L Lesbian for you” was her fifth video to go viral on youtube. She has also been a featured vocalist at Lincoln Center, concerts for BC/EFA, Rockwell/ShowatBarre, new work by Adam Gwon, Thomson and Mann, John Bucchino, Kinosian and Blair and Musical Mondays in LA and NY.
Deborah is a certified yoga instructor, classically trained pianist, amateur chef, intense ping pong player and proud Korean american adoptee.
