Katie Iacona is an American actress who guest starred as Mercy Valduto in Orange is the New Black. She is best known for that role, and being in a Match.com commercial.
Early Life[]
Katie grew up by the beach, in the small town of Seaville, in southern New Jersey. As a kid, Katie loved to sing and perform. She began voice lessons at the young age of 6. Her talent for singing and acting blossomed by participating in many children's musicals such as Aladdin as Aladdin (she wanted to be Jasmine) Hansel in Hansel and Gretel (she wanted to be Gretel) and The Little Mermaid as Sebastian. Then, at age eleven, she finally received her first leading "lady" role as Annie in Annie, one of her favorite roles of all time.
At Ocean City High School, she pursued the arts further, performing in a wide range of shows and musicals. After graduation, Katie was "thrilled" to move to the city of her dreams and attend Fordham University. At Fordham's Lincoln Center campus, she studied Acting, led by an "amazing" faculty and an intensive "company-style" program. Four years of study later, with a BA in Theatre Performance, Katie traveled to Rome, Italy to fuse together her two passions: Acting and all things Italian. At Urbana Colegio, she studied Acting in Italian, Commedia Del'Arte, and the works of Pirandello. This unforgettable experience taught her the beauty of language and its fundamental role in the art of connecting with others.
Career[]
After returning from Italy, Katie has kept busy working in commercials, short films, new musicals, and recording original music. Some of her recent projects include: the feature-length indie comedy Work It as Veronica Earhardt, Kris Kringle the Musical in which she plays Evelyn Noel, The Page to Stage Festival at The Kennedy Center, in Washington D.C. and her work in Orange Is the New Black.