The statuesque 6 foot tall daughter of successful character actors Beth Grant and Michael Chieffo, Mary Chieffo has possessed an innate desire to perform ever since she can remember. Grant loves to tell the story of her daughter's "acting debut" at age three when she brilliantly played a sleeping girl in Making Sandwiches (1998), a short film directed by Sandra Bullock, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
A 2015 BFA graduate in Group 44 of The Juilliard School's Drama Division, Chieffo is the first legacy in the Division's forty-seven year history. Her father was in Group 6.
A self-proclaimed and unabashed Feminist, Chieffo has taken on many strong female and male roles in the Shakespeare canon. Having played Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra, Queen Dionyza in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Doll Tearsheet in Henry IV, Part 2, Lear in King Lear, and Queen Elizabeth in Richard III, she will culminate her Shakespearean achievements at Juilliard in an all-female production of Macbeth directed and adapted by award-winning Erica Schmidt. Chieffo is honored to play the title role of Macbeth.
Chieffo begins her final year in the Drama Division this fall in a workshop of Juilliard playwright Max Posner's Judy directed by Ken Rus Schmoll. In October, she takes a turn as Nat in playwriting alum David Lindsay-Abaire's Pulitzer Prize-winning Rabbit Hole directed by Rebecca Guy.
In 2012, Chieffo appeared opposite Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer, Lauren Miller Rogen, Frances Fisher, Ahna O'Reilly, and Jen Zaboroski in The Perfect Fit, directed by Beth Grant and winner of the Audience Award at the SoHo International Film Festival and Best Ensemble Award at Women's Independent Film Festival. Chieffo can also be seen in the independent films Natural Disasters (2008), Herpes Boy (2009), Miss Dial (2011), and Odyssea (2013) as well as the Disney Channel pilot Jack and Janet Save the Planet.
Despite being chased around the playground in kindergarten for "singing too much", Chieffo has developed a Legit singing voice under the guidance of Deborah Lapidus that lends itself to tunes such as "Surabaya Johnny" (Happy End) and "Will He Like Me?" (She Loves Me). While many Musical Theatre roles inspire her to continue to hone and exercise her 5-Octave range, Chieffo has always dreamed of doing a female interpretation of Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar.
An All-Star Soccer Goalie for ten years, Chieffo is a trained modern dancer, studying Martha Graham technique since the age of three. In 2012, Chieffo discovered a deep love and passion for Vinyasa Flow Yoga and now has a daily practice that she joyfully infuses into her acting technique and life.
Chieffo spoke at Disney Hall in Los Angeles as Valedictorian of the prestigious Campbell Hall School's graduating class of 2011 with a cumulative 4.401 GPA. In her junior year, she was inducted into the Cum Laude Society and presented with the Princeton Book Award. As a senior, Chieffo received the Performing Arts Dance Award and the Headmaster's Award - an award given to a senior whose loyalty, spirit, and vitality have added to and will continue to benefit the school in years to come. At Juilliard, Chieffo is a four-year Merit Scholar, the recipient of the Elizabeth Smith Voice Prize, the SAG Foundation John L. Dales Scholarship, and is an Assistant Resident Coordinator in the Meredith Wilson Residence Hall.
Favorite stage roles include The Singer in Caucasian Chalk Circle, Mrs. Webb in Our Town, Jessica Goldman in This Is Our Youth, Christina Mundy in Dancing at Lughnasa, Grace in Bus Stop, Madame Dubonnet in The Boy Friend, The Baroness in The Sound of Music, Star-to-Be in Annie and, in her first gender-bending role, Moses in her Waldorf School's third grade production of The Child of the Nile.
