Twenty-something phenomenon dazzles audiences in Wicked tour

Annaleigh Ashford, the 22-year-old up and coming actress who made her Broadway debut as Margot in “Legally Blonde: The Musical” joins the cast of “Wicked” as Glinda the Good Witch in the show’s national tour. After acting as an understudy to the role during the show’s 2005 tour, Ashford also put in time in the Broadway show “Feeling Electric” and is a recent graduate of Marymount Manhattan College on New York’s Upper East Side. The 20-something remembers the day she decided that she would become an actress - she was 8 years old. The Colorado-native’s mother took Ashford to Denver’s Kit Andre Performing Arts Center, the rising Broadway star recalled in a June 2007 interview with BroadwayWorld.com. The center was run by “an old-school belter who had false eyelashes out to here and a big diamond ring that said ‘Kit’ on it in rubies,” Ashford said. “It couldn’t have been more perfect. She taught me phrasing and breathing and songs that were completely inappropriate for little girls. When I was eight, I sang, ‘On My Own’ in a talent competition.”

From that day on, the young talent moved up in the performing arts world, playing her very first role as Tina Denmark in “Ruthless” at age 10 and graduating high school in less than three years. She was recruited to play Brenda in the staged reading of “Catch Me If You Can” this past July and hopes to move on to a more full, in-depth acting career. “I just want to work,” Ashford says. “I don’t care where I do it. Whether it’s singing or dancing or acting, this is it for me,” Ashford said. “Wicked” is playing across the country and in London and Australia on national tour. Snatch up Wicked tickets for venues in big cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles and New York by visiting Stubhub.com.

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