Adler graduated from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts and pursued a Masters Degree in Performance Studies at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Before completing her thesis, she began her professional acting career working with the internationally renowned theater collaborative, Mabou Mines. She continued to work in New York City's off-Broadway theater community, most notably in the title role of Richard Foreman's Obie Award winning play Benita Canova, John Guare's Lydie Breeze, and Paul Rudnick's The Most Fabulous Story Every Told. She has also appeared in a number of television commercials and in several independent movies. In 1995, Adler won an Obie Award for Distinguished Performance by an Actress, for her role in the off-Broadway play The Boys in the Basement.. She made her Broadway debut in Terrence McNally's Deuce, directed by Michael Blakemore. On television, Adler has guest-starred in Sex and the City, Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, 30 Rock, The Good Wife, and The Blacklist, and has had recurring roles on Gravity, Are We There Yet?, Orange Is The New Black, Divorce, and The Sinner.
In December 2013, it was announced that Adler had been cast as a series regular for the second season of the Lifetime television comedy-drama series Devious Maids. She played the role of Opal, a new maid who is secretive and conniving, reminiscent of Mrs. Danvers from Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940).
In 2018, she appeared in FX's The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story in a recurring role as Mary Ann Schillaci Cunanan, mother of serial killer Andrew Cunanan, who was portrayed by Darren Criss.
