Annaleigh Ashford is an American actress, singer, and dancer. Her early roles on Broadway include in the musicals Wicked (2007), Legally Blonde (2007), and Hair (2010). She received the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for playing Essie Carmichael in You Can't Take It With You (2014–2015). Her other Tony-nominated roles include Lauren in Kinky Boots (2013) and Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2023). She also starred in the Broadway revival of Sunday in the Park with George (2017).
Ashford was born on June 25, the daughter of Holli Swanson, an elementary school gym teacher, and Chris Swanson, a small-business owner. She began practising dance at Kit Andrée's Dance and Performing Arts Center in the second grade. She acted and sang in numerous performances and competitions in her hometown. Ashford's professional career began at age nine in Denver, when she was cast as Tina Denmark, the lead in the musical Ruthless!. At fourteen, she was profiled as "The Teen to Watch" by the Rocky Mountain News. Other Denver credits include appearing in the ensemble of The Sound of Music, West Side Story, and Paint Your Wagon, as well as in Little Women as Amy March, Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella as Ella, Grease as Sandy Dumbrowski, and Anything Goes as Reno Sweeney. She graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in three years, at the age of 16, and then attended Marymount Manhattan College, where she earned a degree in theatre in another three years, at the age of 19. While attending Marymount Manhattan College, Ashford played Rosa Bud in The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Emma in Tell Me on a Sunday.
