Mary Knapp is a Brooklyn-based accordionist, pianist, composer and singer. She is currently developing Play, Yvette, a musical drama sparked by the collision of accordion, house and kitsch. Since 2023, she has created and led citywide public library programs with Urban Stages Outreach, including her one-woman show, Rebel Squeezebox. Mary made her Broadway debut as actor-accordionist in the Tony Award-winning Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 (2016) and has performed in new works by Whitney White, Florencia Cuenca and Jaime Lozano since 2018. She is founder of experimental cabaret and punk bands, Toot Sweet and Death Sneeze, and children's music project, The Nightingale Fam. She has self-produced six albums, a web series and a video album, and performed with her bands everywhere in NYC from Gracie Mansion to Bryant Park to Brooklyn basements since 2014. From 2015 to 2021, she was accordionist and backing vocalist for Latin projects Cumbia River Band and Irka Mateo, performing at festivals in New York, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic.
Mary has made several TV appearances including the role of Neve in Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll on FX, a singer-accordionist role on Steve Buscemi's Park Bench series on AOL and with the cast of The Great Comet at the 71st Annual Tony Awards. Mary is a regular contributor to Dr. William Schimmel's annual Accordion Seminars.
Mary graduated from Bard College with a B.A. in voice and piano. Her interest in accordion germinated with her second senior thesis concert, a cabaret show in which she arranged and performed early 20th century French and German repertoire for 8-piece ensemble with original monologues. Mary grew up in Princeton, New Jersey.