Arielle Jacobs

Arielle Jacobs is an American actress and singer born in San Francisco, California, to a Filipino mother and an American-Jewish father. She later lived in Half Moon Bay, California, before relocating to New York City. During her early teens, Jacobs moved to Princeton, New Jersey, where she attended Princeton High School and sang with the Princeton High School Choir. She began dancing at age three, training in ballet, tap, and jazz, and made her first stage appearance at age seven in a school play. Her formal vocal training began at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and continued at the Westminster Conservatory of Music. Jacobs earned a Bachelor of Music Degree in Vocal Performance from New York University. Her first professional theatre experience came at age ten, when she was cast in Honor Song for Crazy Horse at the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts in California. Her older brother, Adam Jacobs, is also a theatre performer, and the two have appeared together as guest performers at Walt Disney World's Epcot Festival of the Arts, performing in the Broadway Concert Series at the America Gardens Theatre.

Jacobs made her Broadway debut as Nina Rosario in the closing cast of In the Heights, performing opposite the musical's creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda. She had previously played the same role on the US Tour of the production. She went on to originate the role of Gabriella Montez in the First National Tour of High School Musical on Stage, and later appeared in the Broadway production of the show. Jacobs also performed in the Broadway production of Wicked. She originated the role of Princess Jasmine in the Australian production of Disney's Aladdin in August 2016 and subsequently brought the role to Broadway. In April 2023, it was announced that Jacobs would return to Broadway to originate the role of Imelda Marcos in David Byrne and Fatboy Slim's Here Lies Love, a production she had been attached to since its Broadway run beginning that year.

Beyond her Broadway work, Jacobs has accumulated a substantial off-Broadway career. She starred in two world-premiere plays by playwright Nilo Cruz: Sotto Voce and the one-woman show Farhad or the Secret of Being, the latter of which was filmed for the Lincoln Center Public Library Archives. She performed in the Guggenheim Museum's Works & Process series, presenting songs from a new adaptation of Georges Bizet's Carmen with the Tectonic Theater Project. In 2022, Jacobs reprised her role as Delilah in the off-Broadway premiere of Between the Lines, based on the novel by Jodi Picoult and Samantha Van Leer, which produced a cast album released in January 2023. Her stage work has also included productions of Rent, Into the Woods opposite Tituss Burgess, and Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona.

In June 2018, Broadway Records released Jacobs's debut solo album, A Leap in the Dark: Live at Feinstein's / 54 Below, a live recording of her autobiographical concert chronicling formative moments of her life. The album features music by Celine Dion and Sarah McLachlan alongside songs from her musical theatre roles, and includes contributions from Nicholas Christopher and Javier Colon, the season one winner of The Voice. Her voice also appears on her brother Adam Jacobs's debut solo album Right Where I Belong, on Daniel and Laura Curtis's album Overture, on both volumes 17 and 21 of Carols for a Cure, and on the off-Broadway cast album of Farhad or the Secret of Being.

Outside of performing, Jacobs founded a non-profit organization called The Girls Camaraderie Project, which aims to foster camaraderie among girls ages 10 to 13, and runs the organization alongside Broadway performer Lexi Lawson. She also created an environmental website called Help Heal the Earth, designed to teach children about eco-friendly living. Jacobs married actor J.J. Caruncho on March 6, 2020, in Tulum, Mexico.