Kristin Chenoweth (born July 24, 1968) is an
American singer,
musical theatre,
film, and
television
actress, and author.
Some of her best-known roles have included
her
Tony Award winning role as Sally
Brown in Broadway's
You're a Good Man, Charlie
Brown, her role as Glinda in
Broadway's Wicked,
and her role as Annabeth Schott in
television's The West
Wing. She most recently appeared in the role of
Olive Snook on the
ABC dramedy Pushing
Daisies for which she won the 2009
Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in
a Comedy. Chenoweth is also the face of Jude Frances jewelry.
Chenoweth has a distinctive speaking voice. In
FHM s March 2006 issue, she compared her voice to
that of
Betty Boop.
Chenoweth is a classically trained
coloratura soprano, and well known for
her skilled singing technique and artistic interpretations. She has
a vocal range of four octaves. Chenoweth is able to sing the note
"F6" (1396.913 Hz), also known as "F above High C".
Early life
Adopted at
birth, Kristi Dawn Chenoweth grew up in Broken
Arrow
, Oklahoma
. Her
lineage includes one-quarter
Cherokee
ancestry. Her vocal ability and talent were realized at a young
age, performing songs for local churches. A highlight of her
childhood was a special solo appearance at the
Southern Baptist Convention
national conference at the age of 12. She performed the song "I'm
Four Foot Eleven and I'm Going to Heaven" for an audience of
approximately 40,000 delegates.
Chenoweth attended
Oklahoma
City University, where she was a member of
Gamma Phi Beta (Beta Omicron) Sorority. She
earned a degree in
musical theatre
and a master's degree in
opera performance,
studying under voice instructor
Florence Birdwell. Professor Birdwell has
trained other notables such as
Miss
America 1981
Susan Powell and
three-time Tony nominee
Kelli O'Hara.
It was Birdwell who suggested to Chenoweth that she add an "n" to
her first name, reasoning that the name "Kristin" was perhaps more
classically suited for an opera singer. While at OCU, Chenoweth won
the title of "Miss OCU" and went on to win second runner-up in the
Miss Oklahoma pageant in 1991.
For a
period of time, she performed on stage at Opryland USA
in Nashville
, Tennessee.
Chenoweth
won a number of competitions, including a "most talented
up-and-coming singer" award in the Metropolitan Opera National Council
auditions, which came with a full scholarship to Philadelphia
's Academy of Vocal
Arts. Two weeks before school started, she went to New
York City to help a friend move.
While there, she auditioned for the
Paper Mill
Playhouse
's production of the musical Animal
Crackers and got the role of Arabella Rittenhouse. She
turned down the scholarship and moved to New York to do the show
and pursue a career in musical theatre. She is .
Career
Theatre
Chenoweth
made her Broadway debut in a
production of Molière's Scapin starring Bill
Irwin, followed in the spring of 1997 by the musical Steel Pier by John Kander and Fred
Ebb, for which she won a Theatre
World award. The following season, she appeared in the
City Center Encores! production of the
George and Ira Gershwin musical Strike up the Band and the
Lincoln
Center
Theatre production of William Finn's A New
Brain. She has performed several times on the radio
program
A Prairie Home
Companion.
During the 1998–1999 season, she performed in the Broadway revival
of
You're a Good
Man, Charlie Brown as the title character's little sister,
Sally, a character that was not present
in the original production. (That character replaces the obscure
Peanuts character
Patty,
not to be confused with
Peppermint
Patty.) The performance won Chenoweth the
Tony,
Drama Desk,
and
Outer Critics Circle
Awards as the season's Best Featured Actress in a Musical. She
then starred in the Broadway comedy
Epic Proportions, followed by
appearances in
ABC's
television adaptation of the musical
Annie (as Lily St. Regis), and in the leading role of
Daisy Gamble in the City Center Encores! production of
On a Clear Day You Can See
Forever.
In 2003, Chenoweth performed songs from her album
Let Yourself
Go in concert for Lincoln Center's 5th American Songbook. She
also performed in City Center Encores! 10th Anniversary Bash.
In London,
she was involved in Divas at Donmar for director Sam Mendes, then appeared in the Actor's Fund
Benefit Concert of the musical Funny Girl in New York
City
.
In October 2003, she returned to Broadway in
Wicked, the musical about the early
years of the witches of
Oz, in the
joint-leading role of
Galinda, the
Good Witch of the North. She was
nominated for a 2004
Tony Award as
Best
Leading Actress in a Musical for her performance, losing only
to co-star
Idina Menzel (playing
Elphaba, the
Wicked Witch of the West). After
playing Glinda for nine months (not including the years leading up
to the Broadway run where she played the role in all of the show's
workshops), Chenoweth left
Wicked on along with co-stars
Joel Grey and
Norbert Leo Butz. Chenoweth was replaced by
Jennifer Laura
Thompson.
Chenoweth played
Cunegonde in a revival of
Candide, directed by
Lonny Price in 2004. Price's semi-staged concert production with
the New York Philharmonic under conductor Marin Alsop, ran for four
performances between and .
The production featured Paul Groves as
Candide, Sir Thomas Allen as Dr. Pangloss,
Patti LuPone as the Old Lady, with
choruses from both Westminster
Choir College and the Juilliard School
completing the performance cast, and was also
broadcast on PBS's Great Performances. A performance
of the rarely sung duet "We Are Women" between Cunegonde and the
Old Lady was included in the production.
From December 14, 2006 to March 11, 2007, Chenoweth starred on
Broadway in a production of
The Apple
Tree and received rave reviews for her performance. On ,
she performed a solo concert at
The Metropolitan Opera in New York,
only the third musical theatre star ever to present a solo concert
at the Met, following
Barbara Cook and
Yves Montand.
Chenoweth has also
performed leading roles at the Goodspeed Opera House
and the Guthrie Theatre
, and she was chosen by the late Jerome Robbins as the guest soloist in his
West Side Story Suite of
Dances at New York City
Ballet.
Chenoweth hosted the 52nd Annual Drama Desk Awards on .
Chenoweth played Elizabeth in the pre-Broadway workshop in
Mel Brooks'
Broadway adaptation of his film
Young Frankenstein,
however, due to her
Pushing Daisies commitments, she was
unable to appear in the production. Similarly, in 2008 she had been
scheduled to reprise her role as Cunegonde in an
English National Opera production of
Candide, but she had to
pull out because of the resumption of filming.
She appeared in
Jerome Kern and
Oscar Hammerstein II's
Music in the Air for its
short semi-staged running from February 5-8, 2009. Chenoweth had
been scheduled to return to The Metropolitan Opera in 2010 to play
Samira in
John Corigliano's opera
The Ghosts of
Versailles after being invited by general manager
Peter Gelb to perform. Although expected to
sell-out, the Metropolitan was ultimately forced to cancel the
opera because of
Ghosts exorbitant production costs, and
the company's budget limitations due to recent economic
conditions.
Television and film
In television, Chenoweth starred in a short-lived
sitcom,
Kristin, for NBC that ran for six
episodes (13 were filmed). It was a mid-season replacement in 2001
that co-starred
Jon Tenney. Beginning in
the sixth season (2004–2005) of
The West Wing, Chenoweth had
a recurring role playing media consultant
Annabeth Schott, and became a main cast
member in the show's seventh and final season (2005-2006). She
performed "
For Good," a song she had sung
in
Wicked, at the memorial service for her friend and
West Wing costar
John
Spencer.
Chenoweth
was a part of ABC's
An American Celebration at Ford's Theatre
with Kelsey Grammer,
NBC's Salute to the Olympic Winners, The
Kennedy Center
Gala honoring Julie
Andrews, and an episode of Frasier on NBC. She also starred as
Marian Paroo in the ABC television production of
Meredith Willson's The Music Man opposite
Matthew Broderick.
Chenoweth appeared in
Nora Ephron's 2005
film version of
Bewitched. The film's star,
Nicole Kidman, had attended a performance of
Wicked and was so impressed with Chenoweth's charisma and
stage presence that Kidman asked Ephron to cast Chenoweth in the
film. Chenoweth got the part of Maria Kelly, Kidman's character's
best friend.
In 2006, she appeared in five films including
The Pink Panther,
RV,
Stranger Than Fiction,
Running with
Scissors and
Deck the
Halls. Chenoweth also appeared as Mr. Noodle's Sister Ms.
Noodle in
Sesame Street's
Elmo's World television series
alongside
Michael Jeter and
Bill Irwin.
In February 2007, Chenoweth co-hosted on an episode of
The View and was invited back after performing
a song from
The Apple Tree on the show. She was also
featured briefly in the first season finale of
Ugly Betty. In fall 2007, she became a
member of the cast of the
ABC show
Pushing Daisies. The comedic drama is
the story of Ned, a man who can bring the dead back to life.
Chenoweth plays
Olive Snook, a
co-worker and neighbor of Ned's who is in love with him. In the
show, she has sung numerous times, doing a take on "
Hopelessly Devoted To You", a duet
with
Ellen Greene for "
Birdhouse in Your Soul", Eternal
Flame, and Candle on the Water with a group of male singers.
Chenoweth sang in the second episode of season one. She received an
Emmy Award nomination for Best Supporting
Actress in 2008 for her role as Olive in
Pushing Daisies.
On February 24, 2008
Chenoweth sang "That's How You
Know" from the film Enchanted at the 80th Academy Awards in the Kodak Theater
. She also voiced Rosetta the garden fairy in
the 2008 animated film
Tinker
Bell.
Chenoweth appeared in the 2008 holiday romantic comedy film
Four Christmases, playing
the sister of
Reese Witherspoon's
character. She is also on the Fox animated sitcom "
Sit Down, Shut Up" as the voice of Miracle
Grohe, a hippie science teacher who takes her baby, Merch, to
school.
She also appeared on the Fox News Channel's 2008 special "A Fox and
Friends Christmas", where she sang "Do You Hear What I Hear?" from
her Christmas album
A Lovely Way to Spend Christmas.
Chenoweth stars as a "suicidal prostitute" in the indie drama
Into Temptation under writer-director
Patrick Coyle. The film was recently screened
at the Newport Beach Film Festival. She also has been cast to star
in a new
NBC David
E. Kelley drama entitled
Legally Mad and will play an
attorney named Skippy Pylon. She recently finished shooting the
pilot episode. However, NBC passed on the show.
On Sept. 20, 2009 Chenoweth won her first Emmy award for her role
in
Pushing Daisies.
Chenoweth guest-starred as former
Glee
club member April Rhodes in the Sept. 30, 2009 episode of
Fox's
Glee. The first series' fifth episode
- "The Rhodes Not Taken" - saw Chenoweth playing the title role as
a washed-up would-be star, recalled to her former glory days of
High School singing competitions by
Matthew Morrison's lead character Will
Schuester. Among her performances for the show, Chenoweth sang
"Maybe This Time" from
Cabaret with star Rachel Berry (enacted
by
Lea Michele), released as track 6 on
Columbia Records' soundtrack
Glee: The Music, Volume 1. It has been announced that
Chenoweth will reprise her role as April later in Season 1 of the
show.
Internet
On August 27, 2008, Chenoweth released a video with
funnyordie.com titled
Intervention with
Kristin Chenoweth. The video parodied
A&E's show
Intervention, with Chenoweth
starring as a singing, dancing interventionist. The song was
composed by
Andrew Lippa, Chenoweth's
frequent musical director and composer for her concert songs as
well as the composer of "My New Philosophy", which she sang in the
revival of
You're A
Good Man, Charlie Brown, and the lyrics were written by
Amy Rhodes, who also wrote the clip. The
video was shot in five hours in a room of a
Hilton Hotel. Chenoweth admitted that she was
hesitant about performing the lyrics.
Upcoming roles
- Chenoweth will continue to lend her voice to the role of
Rosetta for the rest of the three Tinker
Bell films.
- Chenoweth will star in the Lifetime Original Movie,
Twelve Men of
Christmas, which will premiere in December 2009 as part of
Lifetime's annual "Fa La La La
Lifetime" programming.
- Chenoweth will play a "wedding extraordinaire" in the Disney comedy You Again.
- She
will star in the new Off-Broadway play
Love, Loss, and What I Wore which is currently playing a
twelve-week engagement at the Westside Theatre
beginning September 21, 2009. She was to
start performances in the show on November 18, but due to illness,
had to be filled in by Katie
Finneran. She officially began the week of November 27,
2009.
- Chenoweth will star as Fran Kubelik in the
Broadway revival of Promises,
Promises which will begin performances at the Broadway
Theatre
on March 28, 2010 and will offically open on April
25, 2010.
Special events and appearances
Chenoweth and the cast of the Broadway musical
Wicked
performed the song "One Short Day" in the 2003
Macy's Thanksgiving Day
Parade.
In the 2005
Macy's
Thanksgiving Day Parade, Chenoweth performed the song
"Oklahoma" while riding aboard the "Oklahoma Rising" float. The
float was making the first of three annual appearances
commemorating the state of Oklahoma's statehood centennial in
2007.
She was the star performer of the opening ceremony of the 2007
Tournament of Roses Parade. She sang "Our Good Nature," an original
composition written to coincide with the Oklahoma centennial
celebration and the theme of the parade.
In the 2008
Macy's
Thanksgiving Day Parade, she performed the song "The Christmas
Waltz" from her "A Lovely Way to Spend Christmas" album while
riding aboard the "The Care Bears Winter Fun-Derland" float.
Personal life
Chenoweth has written a memoir about her life,
A Little Bit
Wicked: Life, Love, and Faith in Stages, describing her
adoption, her turn in
Wicked and her time in Hollywood.
She has stated that the book is not a "tell all", and instead
focuses on "how I got where I am so far". The book was released on
April 14, 2009. The book spent two weeks on
The New York Times Best
Seller List.
Chenoweth has spoken publicly about her faith; she describes
herself as a "non-judgmental, liberal Christian". Raised as a
Southern Baptist, she
later chose to have a personal connection to a faith that is not
based in any one denomination.
When in California
, she attends a non-denominational church in
Malibu
. In New York, she attends a
United Methodist Church.
Chenoweth also has a large
gay
fanbase, and was uninvited from a
Women of Faith conference in September
2005 "due to her publicized and heartfelt beliefs that God is
accepting of all people on earth," including homosexuals.
Chenoweth released an album in April 2005 called
As I Am, a mixture of
hymns and
contemporary Christian music,
with
adult contemporary
arrangements. To promote the album, she made an appearance on
The 700 Club, an appearance
that upset some of her gay fans. She later said she thought that
the "
Pat Robertsons and
Jerry Falwells of the world are scary" and
that she regretted appearing on the show.
She has dated and remains close friends with producer/writer
Aaron Sorkin. In Sorkin's
Studio 60 on the Sunset
Strip, the character of
Harriet
Hayes bears significant resemblances to Chenoweth, and the
relationship between the Christian Hayes and "East Coast liberal
Jewish atheist" (her description)
Matt
Albie is modeled after that between Chenoweth and Sorkin;
Chenoweth's decision to appear on the
700
Club and her falling out with Women of Faith were depicted with
the Hayes character.
Chenoweth has
Ménière's
disease, an inner-ear disorder which can cause vertigo, among
other symptoms. She has said that, during some performances, she
has had to literally lean on her co-stars to keep her
balance.
Chenoweth
was awarded an honorary doctorate in Performing Arts from the
University of North Carolina School of the
Arts
on May 30, 2009, where she was the commencement
speaker.
Credits
In theatre
Filmography
| Film |
| Year |
Film |
Role |
Notes |
| 1999 |
Annie |
Lily St. Regis |
TV film |
| 2001 |
Seven Roses |
|
TV film |
| 2002 |
Topa Topa Bluffs |
Patty |
|
| 2003 |
The Music
Man |
Marion Paroo |
TV film |
| 2005 |
Bewitched |
Maria Kelly |
|
| 2006 |
The Pink
Panther |
Cherie |
|
| RV |
Mary Jo Gornicke |
|
| Stranger Than
Fiction |
Book Channel host |
|
| Running with
Scissors |
Fern Stewart |
|
| Deck the
Halls |
Tia Hall |
|
| A Sesame Street Christmas Carol |
Christmas Carole |
Voice role |
| 2008 |
Space Chimps |
Kilowatt |
Voice role |
| Tinker Bell |
Rosetta |
Voice role |
| Four Christmases |
Courtney |
|
| 2009 |
Into Temptation |
Linda Salerno |
|
| Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure |
Rosetta |
voice role |
| Twelve Men of Christmas |
E.J. Baxter |
pre-production |
| 2010 |
Tinker Bell: A Midsummer Storm |
Rosetta |
in production, voice role |
| You Again |
Monique Leroux |
pre-production |
| Tinker Bell: A Winter Story |
Rosetta |
pre-production, voice role |
|
| Television |
| Year |
Title |
Role |
Notes |
| 1999 |
LateLine |
Kristin |
"The Christian Guy" |
| Paramour |
|
Mini-series |
| 2001 |
Kristin |
Kristin Yancey |
Eleven episodes |
| Frasier |
Portia Sanders |
"Junior Agent" |
| 2002 |
Baby Bob |
Crystal Carter |
"Talking Babies Say the Darndest Things" |
| 2003 |
Fillmore! |
Museum Guide |
Voice role, "Masterstroke of
Malevolence" |
| 2005 |
Great
Performances |
Cunegonde |
Candide |
| 2004-2006 |
The West Wing |
Annabeth Schott |
Thirty-four episodes, main character
Nominated —
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an
Ensemble in a Drama Series (2004, 2005) (shared with
the
cast) |
| 2003-2006 |
Sesame Street |
Ms. Noodle |
Two episodes |
| 2001-2007 |
Elmo's World |
Ms. Noodle |
Two episodes |
| 2007 |
Ugly Betty |
Diane |
"East Side
Story" |
| Robot Chicken |
various |
"Squaw Bury
Shortcake" |
| 2007-2009 |
Pushing Daisies |
Olive
Snook |
Twenty-two episodes, main character
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress - Comedy
Series (2009)
Nominated —
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Comedy
Series (2008)
Nominated —
Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or
Television Film |
| 2009 |
Sit Down,
Shut Up |
Miracle Grohe |
Voice role, eleven episodes, main character |
| Legally Mad |
Skippy Pylon |
Pilot, never aired on television |
| Glee |
April Rhodes |
"The Rhodes Not Taken" |
Discography
Awards
- 1997 Theater World Award
- 1999 Outer Critics Circle Award - Outstanding Featured Actress
in a Musical (You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown)
- 1999 Drama Desk Award - Outstanding Featured Actress in a
Musical (You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown)
- 1999 Tony Award - Best Featured Actress in a Musical (You're a
Good Man, Charlie Brown)
- 2005 Breakthrough Of The Year Award from Hollywood Life
Magazine
- 2008 Point Courage Award — Point Foundation
- 2009 Primetime Emmy Awards - Outstanding Supporting Actress in
a Comedy Series (Pushing Daisies)
References
- Birdsong, Jenkins, Joyce, Lynch and Lyonne Join
Cast of Off-Broadway's Love, Loss, and What I Wore
- Katie Finneran Will Fill in for Kristin Chenoweth
in Love, Loss
- >
External links
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