Renée Elise Goldsberry

Goldsberry was born in San Jose, California and raised in both Houston, Texas and Detroit, Michigan. She is the daughter of Betty Sanders, an industrial psychologist, and her father was an automotive industry executive in Michigan. Goldsberry has one older brother and two younger brothers. Goldsberry was introduced to theater in summer camp when she was 8 years old. Renée's younger brother was shy, and their mother enrolled both of them in camp at the HITS Theatre in Houston taught by Carolyn Franklin.

After graduating from Cranbrook Kingswood School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, she attended Carnegie Mellon University, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theater, in 1993. This is also where she became a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority through the Theta Beta chapter. She subsequently attended graduate school at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music, where she received a Master of Music in jazz studies, graduating in 1997.