Kristin Chenoweth

Kristin Chenoweth (born July 24, 1968) is an American singer, musical theatre, film, and television actress, and author. She provides the voice of Rosetta in Disney's Tinker Bell films.

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 was a cast member on the ABC comedy-drama Pushing Daisies; her portrayal of Olive Snook on that show was recognized with a 2009 Primetime Emmy Award.

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. She is, in fact, 4ft 11in (making her even shorter than famously-short J. M. Barrie).

After graduating from Broken Arrow Senior High, Chenoweth attended Oklahoma City University. She earned a degree in musical theatre and a master's degree in opera performance, studying under voice instructor Florence Birdwell, who also trained Miss America 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.

Theatre
Chenoweth made her Broadway debut in the spring of 1997 in 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.

In early 1999, 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. The performance won Chenoweth the Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. She then starred on Broadway in the short lived musical-comedy Epic Proportions in 1999, followed by starring in the leading role of Daisy Gamble in the City Center Encores production of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever in February 2000.

In 2003 she returned to Broadway in Wicked, the musical about the early years of the witches of Oz, as Glinda, 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 to her co-star Idina Menzel (playing Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West). She 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, broadcast on PBS's Great Performances. From December 2006 to March 2007, she starred on Broadway in a production of The Apple Tree and received rave reviews for her performance.

In January 2007, she performed a solo concert at The Metropolitan Opera in New York, only the third musical-theatre star to do so. She appeared in Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's Music in the Air for its short semi-staged run in February 2009.

Television
After a guest appearance on LateLine and several roles in television films such as Annie, Chenoweth was given her own NBC sitcom entitled Kristin in 2001. It was short-lived, with thirteen episodes filmed, and only six episodes aired.

She had a starring role in the Emmy-nominated television film The Music Man. In 2004 she was cast as media consultant Annabeth Schott in The West Wing; the cast were nominated twice for Screen Actors Guild Awards. From 2007 to 2009, Chenoweth played Olive Snook in the television series Pushing Daisies, for which she won the 2009 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.

In 2009, Chenoweth lent her voice to the animated comedy series Sit Down Shut Up. She voiced the role of Miracle Grohe, a science teacher who didn't believe in science. The series lasted just thirteen episodes. Later that year, Chenoweth guest starred as April Rhodes in Glee, receiving a Satellite Award for Outstanding Guest Star.

Film
Chenoweth made her film debut in the film Topa Topa Buffs in 2002. She returned to the big screen in the 2005 film version of Bewitched, directed by Nora Ephron. The film's star, Nicole Kidman, had attended a performance of Wicked and was so impressed with Chenoweth's charisma and stage presence that she asked Ephron to cast Chenoweth as her character's best friend Maria Kelly. In 2006, she appeared in five films: The Pink Panther, RV, Stranger Than Fiction, Running with Scissors and Deck the Halls.

She voiced Rosetta, the garden fairy in the 2008 animated film Tinker Bell and in 2009's Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure. She appeared in the 2008 holiday romantic comedy film Four Christmases, playing the sister of Reese Witherspoon's character. She has been cast as the China Doll Princess in the CGI 2011 animated film Dorothy Of Oz, with Lea Michele and Kelsey Grammer.

Recording
Chenoweth has a distinctive speaking voice, one she has compared to that of Betty Boop. She 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, and can sing the note "F6" (1396.913 Hz), also known as "F above High C".

She released her debut album Let Yourself Go in 2001, a collection of jazz standards from musicals of the 1930s. In 2004, she released her second album As I Am, a collection of spiritual songs, which peaked at #31 on the US Christian Albums Chart. In 2008, she released her third studio album entitled A Lovely Way to Spend Christmas. Unlike her first two albums it made quite an impact on the charts reaching #77 on the US Billboard Albums Chart, climbing to #7 on the US Holiday Albums chart, and to #1 on the US Heatseekers Chart.

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. The book was released in April 2009, and spent two weeks on The New York Times Best Seller List.

She has spoken publicly about her faith; she describes herself as a "non-judgmental, liberal Christian". Raised as a Southern Baptist, she attends a non-denominational church in Malibu, and in New York she attends a United Methodist Church. Following complaints from gay fans over her appearance on The 700 Club to promote her spiritual album As I Am, she said she thought that the "Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells of the world are scary" and that she regretted appearing on the show. She was uninvited from a Women of Faith conference 2005 due – according to Chenoweth – "to her publicized and heartfelt beliefs that God is accepting of all people on earth, including homosexuals."

She has dated producer/writer Aaron Sorkin, a relationship that was mirrored in Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip by the characters Harriet Hayes and Matt Albie.

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.

category:actors who played fairies