Laura Osnes

Laura Osnes

Laura Ann Osnes is an American actress and singer known for her work on the Broadway stage. She has played starring roles in Grease as Sandy, South Pacific as Nellie Forbush, Anything Goes as Hope Harcourt, and Bonnie and Clyde as Bonnie Parker. Osnes also starred in the title role of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella on Broadway. In 2015, Osnes was a judge and mentor for the Songbook Academy.

About Laura Osnes in brief

Summary Laura OsnesLaura Ann Osnes is an American actress and singer known for her work on the Broadway stage. She has played starring roles in Grease as Sandy, South Pacific as Nellie Forbush, Anything Goes as Hope Harcourt, and Bonnie and Clyde as Bonnie Parker. Osnes also starred in the title role of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella on Broadway, for which she received a Drama Desk Award and her second Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical. In 2015, Osnes was a judge and mentor for the Songbook Academy, a summer intensive for high school students operated by the Great American Songbook Foundation and founded by Michael Feinstein. She is married to long-time boyfriend Nathan Johnson and they live in Manhattan with their dog, Lyla. She was born in Burnsville, Minnesota, raised in nearby Eagan, a suburb of Saint Paul, and is a professed Christian. She attended the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point for one year as a Musical Theatre major, before dropping out to pursue a professional career.

In 2005–2006 she returned to Minneapolis to be a performing apprentice at the Children’s Theatre Company, performing in Working, Aladdin Jr., Prom, and Pippi Longstocking. She also played the lead of Sandy in the nation’s largest dinner theatre, the Chanhassen Dinner Theatres, but her run was cut short when she was chosen to compete in the nationally televised Broadway talent competition Grease: You’re the One that I Want!. She was named the winner on March 25, 2007, which meant she would perform the lead character of Sandy opposite Max Crumm, the show’s male competitor who won the role of \”Danny\”. Osnes and Crumm played their final performances as Sandy and Danny on July 20, 2008, and they were succeeded by Ashley Spencer and Derek Keeling, two of the runners-up of Grease. She then starred as BonnieParker in the world premiere of Bonnie & Clyde at the La Jolla Playhouse from Nov. 10 to Dec. 20, 2009.