Member: SAG, AEA. Improviser/Performer/Writer and proud member of the Quacker Factory Team on QVC

Short Version
Jo has appeared in various films such as "Rounding First," "Corporate Affairs," and "On Common Ground," which premiered at Cannes. You will also recognize her as the "Assistant Quack" for QVC's exclusive Quacker Factory clothing line. Prior to studying improv and writing at Second City, she earned her BA in British Literature and Theatre at Millersville University. While working her way through school, she was employed as a business magazine telemarketer, so chances are that you've hung up on her at least once in your life. In her spare time, Jo is an avid gardener, and Webmaster of Her Own Domain (www.jomercer.biz).
 

Long Version
Jo Mercer was in every state in the contiguous USA before she reached age three. Born in Long Beach, CA, she was old enough to start school there when her parents decided, after trekking back and forth across the country by train and a beat up old Plymouth Satellite station wagon named Bessie, that it was time to return to the east. She lived in Brooklyn for a while before the family settled down in Delaware County, outside of South Philadelphia.

Her dad raised her on a healthy diet of Marx Brothers and The Three Stooges; mom balanced this out with movie musical extravaganzas like "Gigi" and "Thoroughly Modern Millie." Later in life, Jo developed an appetite for British and Canadian humor. While still young, though, Jo often got the family movie camera and made little films including her siblings and several of the neighbors as well. Everything considered, it's interesting that the parents had trouble understanding why, when it was time to go to college, Jo wanted to major in Theatre. The idea!

Jo started college in 1978 and put herself through one class at a time, finally graduating in 1993. In between times, she met and fell in love with her husband Stephen; got married; nursed him through leukemia and a bone marrow transplant at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore; had two children the doctors told them would never be possible; and bought a small apartment house in Chester Country, PA.

She dabbled in community theatre here and there, but the bug truly clamped on and wouldn't let go when she was cast as The Trash Can Lady in a little theatre production of Christopher Durang's "The Actor's Nightmare." In this scene, the player is crammed in a trash can and picks her nose. Jo remembered why she loved the limelight so much when, during production, her ad-lib of pretending to wipe the offending mucous on the coat of the unsuspecting actors nearby practically brought production to a standstill while the audience wept with laughter. Oops!

That was it. Jo began attending workshops and auditioning on a regular basis. Within a few years, she earned both her SAG and AEA memberships. She has played principal roles on films with Breckin Meyer and Soren Fulton, and is a regular on QVC's The Quacker Factory. She truly is a Quacker, too! Her closet is chock-full of Quacker Factory clothing, and she loves waking up to bright colors and cheery clothes every day!

Jo resides in Pennsylvania with Stephen, her husband since 1983; son Adam (19); daughter Alexis (18); and five Mini-MaltiPoos named Picard, Athena, Loki, Deb and Brian (the twins were born while the TV show Dexter was on.) During the winter, she cuddles up on the sofa and catches up on all of her reading; come summertime, Jo is usually found sewing, crocheting, reading a good book, writing the Next Great American Novel, or digging around in her backyard garden.