Allison Strong

Allison Trujillo Strong is an American actress, singer, and songwriter who works across stage, television, film, and voice-over. Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, Strong grew up in Union City, where her mother, Patricia Trujillo, worked as a school psychologist for the Union City Board of Education for 39 years. Strong's Colombian heritage shaped her artistic development from an early age; her grandparents, Soledad and Carlos, introduced her to Colombian folk songs and poetry at the dinner table, and her great-grandfather Rubén, who died in the 1940s, had worked as a poet for the Colombian national periodical El Colombiano. Strong grew up speaking only Spanish at home until an encounter in a store prompted her mother to switch to English, and Strong later enrolled in Spanish-language classes in high school to reconnect with the language. She writes and performs in both English and Spanish, composing on piano and acoustic guitar.

Strong began acting at age seven, when her mother enrolled her in classes at the John Harms Center for the Arts in Englewood to address her shyness. From first through eighth grade she attended Woodrow Wilson School in Weehawken, an arts-integrated institution where she studied drama under Joseph D. Conklin. At age three she had already been drawn to singing after receiving a dollar-store microphone with an echo function, and by age nine she entered the contest circuit, winning New Jersey Network's Hispanic Youth Showcase with "Much More" from The Fantasticks — the first show tune she had learned. She went on to win that competition three times and later hosted an Emmy-winning program for the channel. At age ten she joined the Park Players of Union City, received professional vocal training, and eventually became a member of the Metropolitan Opera Children's Chorus, appearing in the Metropolitan Opera's production of Carmen at age twelve.

In November 2001, at age eleven, Strong was chosen from more than 2,000 entries as the winner of Oscar Mayer's Concurso Cantando Hasta La Fama competition, in which she sang the brand's jingle in Spanish. The victory earned her a national commercial appearance and $20,000 toward her college fund. That same year she played Dorothy Gale in her school's production of The Wizard of Oz, her first lead role. By age thirteen she had appeared in five productions with the Park Players, including a May 2004 staging of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, and was among 48 students selected statewide for NJPAC's Summer Youth Performance Workshop Showcase. In April 2006, while a sophomore at Union Hill High School, she appeared in the school's production of Annie Get Your Gun.

In March 2008, Strong won the statewide Poetry Out Loud competition, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, defeating more than 5,000 students from 44 high schools. She earned $1,500 in scholarships and awards, and judges noted her performance moved from astute humor to quiet triumph. Her recitation of Shakespeare's sonnet "My Mistress' Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun" was included in a DVD compilation of the competition's finals released that November. In June 2008, Strong graduated as her school's final salutatorian before Union Hill High School was converted to a middle school. That September she participated in the NEA's Sixth Annual Poetry Pavilion at the National Book Festival. She subsequently enrolled at the Cali School of Music at Montclair State University, where she majored in musical theater, though she took a six-month leave from her studies to pursue her Broadway debut.

Strong's professional stage career began in 2009 when she read about an open casting call for Bye Bye Birdie in Backstage magazine and slept on the street in a sleeping bag outside the Roundabout Theatre Company in order to audition. She was cast in the ensemble and in the role of Helen Miller, a friend of female lead Kim McAfee. The production, which starred John Stamos, opened on October 15, 2009 at Henry Miller's Theatre in Manhattan, marking Strong's Broadway debut. To promote the show, Strong and her castmates performed "Honestly Sincere" on Good Morning America. Her Broadway work between 2001 and 2009 also includes the musical Mamma Mia!.

Beyond Broadway, Strong has performed at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and for multiple New Jersey governors, beginning with Christie Todd Whitman. She has also performed at the White House for President George W. Bush and for Colombian President Álvaro Uribe. In May 2011, she sang at NJPAC's Victoria Theater as part of the NJN Hispanic Youth Showcase's 25th anniversary celebration, a broadcast that aired on NJN in June of that year. In 2010, during her freshman year at Montclair, she wrote for Backstage magazine's "Take 5" column.

Strong's debut dual-language album, March Towards the Sun, was released on August 31, 2014. In 2015, she played Ado Annie Carnes in a production of Oklahoma! in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, a performance that received notice from The New York Times. Her television credits include voice-over work on Nickelodeon's animated series Dora and Friends, as well as appearances in The Blacklist and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. In 2018, she made her feature film debut in The Week Of, playing Sarah, the daughter of Adam Sandler's character.