FEATURED ARTIST

Kristin Chenoweth "Stage center" is something like home to Kristin Chenoweth. She was born to be there. Broadway audiences know it well, from her show-stealing, Tony-winning performance in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown in 1999, to her triumphant star turn last year as Glinda the Good Witch in Wicked. She made her solo recording debut on Sony Classical in 2001 with a high-spirited, Broadway-flavored disc entitled Let Yourself Go. TV fans are getting to know her as smart-as-a-whip Annabeth Schott on The West Wing, and moviegoers will soon see her in everything from a feature film adaptation of Bewitched, starring Nicole Kidman, to a new edition of The Pink Panther with Steve Martin and Kevin Kline. The first "stage center" she ever knew was in the Southern Baptist church in which she was raised in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, where she discovered her love of singing and performing. The budding, diminutive singer/actress was so impressive that, when she was 12, she sang for the entire Southern Baptist Convention. The song was "I'm Four Foot Eleven and I'm Going to Heaven”. Acclaimed for her distinctive comedic gifts as well as her wide-ranging musical abilities, Chenoweth made her Broadway debut in a production of Moliere's Scapin starring Bill Irwin, followed in the spring of 1997 by the Kander and Ebb musical Steel Pier, for which she won a Theatre World award. The next season, she appeared in the Encores! production of Strike Up the Band and the Lincoln Center Theater production of A New Brain. During the 1998-99 season, she created the role of Sally in the first Broadway production of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, sweeping the Tony®, Drama Desk® and Outer Critics Circle® Awards as the season's Best Featured Actress in a Musical. Next, she starred in the Broadway comedy Epic Proportions, followed by acclaimed appearances in the ABC television adaptation of the musical Annie (as Lily St. Regis) and in the Encores! On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. In ABC's 2003 TV version of Meredith Willson's The Music Man, she starred as Marian the Librarian opposite Matthew Broderick in the title role. Chenoweth has also appeared on Sesame Street as Ms. Noodle and in Elmo's video/DVD Elmo's World: Happy Holidays!, the first-ever Elmo's World holiday special. In the fall of 2003, she returned to Broadway a full-fledged star in Wicked, the biggest hit of the 2003-04 New York season, winning love-letter reviews from the critics as well as Tony®, Drama Desk® and Outer Critics Circle® nominations for her performance. She 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. On television, Chenoweth also starred in her own series, Kristin for NBC. She has won rave reviews for her eagerly awaited concerts for Lincoln Center's 5th American Songbook, in which she performed selections from her first Sony Classical album, and she also received critical acclaim for her performance in City Center Encores! 10th Anniversary Bash. She made her London debut in Divas at Donmar, directed by Oscar® winner Sam Mendes, which opened to rave reviews, and appeared at the highly anticipated Actor's Fund Benefit Concert of the musical Funny Girl in New York City. She also appeared at the Village Theater in New York, in a one-night-only presentation of Earth Girls Are Easy, a new musical based on the original film script by Julie Brown, Charlie Coffey and Terrence E. McNally for the Lark Theater Company. A native of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, Kristin Chenoweth studied at Oklahoma City University, earning a bachelor's degree in musical theater and a master's degree in opera performance, performing a number of roles in the lyric coloratura category. She performed in the stage revue at Opryland and won a "most talented up-and-coming singer" award in the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions, which resulted in a full scholarship to Philadelphia's Academy of Vocal Arts. En route to Philadelphia, she auditioned for an Off-Broadway show and got the part. She decided to forgo her scholarship to pursue a career on Broadway; a short time later, she was accepting a Tony® Award Click here to visit Kristin's Official Sony BMG Site Click here to purchase tickets to see Kristin in The Apple Tree Click here to visit kristinchenoweth.com Check out Kristin Chenoweth's release available from Sony BMG