Jane Hoffman, a versatile actress on and off Broadway, died on Monday at a hospital in Woodland Hills, Calif., according to her son, Sam McMurray. She was 93 and had lived in Manhattan until moving to Los Angeles recently.
Ms. Hoffman was in more than 20 shows on Broadway from 1940 into the 1990s, including the original casts of Arthur Miller’s “Crucible,” Tennessee Williams’ “Rose Tattoo,” Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children” and the 1961 production of Eugene Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros.”
But she was best known for her roles in plays by Edward Albee, including “The Sand Box” and “The American Dream.” In the first production of “The American Dream,” at the York Playhouse in 1961, Ms. Hoffman played Mommy, a predatory character described by the playwright as a “tumescent monster.”
While Ms. Hoffman was in “The American Dream” off Broadway, in a double bill of one-acts with Albee’s “Bartleby,” she was also on Broadway in “Rhinoceros” at the Longacre Theater, but only in the first act. To play in both shows, Ms. Hoffman took a car across town immediately after she left the stage in “Rhinoceros.” On Saturday nights, when there were two performances of “The American Dream,” she took two trips.
“The Sandbox,” from 1960, had another character named Mommy, which Ms. Hoffman originated; when the play was revived in 1994 as part of a trio of Albee shorts called “Sand,” she played the role of Grandma.
Ms. Hoffman made her Broadway debut in 1940 in the musical “‘Tis of Thee.”
Ms. Hoffman was a founding member of the Ensemble Studio Theater and acted in and directed many productions there.
