Background
Amato was born in the city of Plainfield, New Jersey and grew up in nearby Mountainside.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Erika Amato
Edit ProfileEducation
Vassar College.
Career
She started playing and performing music at three. While at Vassar, she performed in the Music Department"s elite a cappella group, the Madrigals, and in the student-managed coeducational a cappella group, Matthew"s Minstrels. After Vassar, Amato moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career and quickly was cast as a guest star on popular television series Quantum Leap, garnering her a Screen Actors Guild card.
In the mid-1990s, she and Jeff Stacy founded Velvet Chain, an indie band with a large cult following, most famous for appearances on television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the subsequent soundtrack album on TVT Records.
The band has also self-released several albums on its own label, Freak Productions, and members continue to write and record material. Amato is still acting and has relocated to New York City, where she has been in numerous productions, including the Office-Broadway musicals The Sphinx Winx and Signs of Life.
She also does voice work for television shows and films—most recently for Public Broadcasting Service-television animated series Danger Rangers and Disney feature film Enchanted.
Achievements
-
Amato attended the all-girls Kent Place School (receiving the Drama Award upon graduation) and then Vassar College, earning a Bachelor with both General Honors and Honors in Drama. She has also appeared in many plays and films over the years, including the lead in indie film A Couple of Days and Nights and in musicals Sleeping Beauty Wakes (Center Theatre Group - Ovation Award Nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical), Paint Your Wagon (Geffen Playhouse), Nine (Chance Theater - OC Weekly Award Nomination for Best Actress in a Musical), 42nd Street (Welk Resort Theatre), Anything Goes (Candlelight Pavilion - Inland Theatre League Awards Nomination for Best Actress in a Musical) ), and others Amato appeared on television series-competition Win Ben Stein"s Money and won.
