Caitlin Kinnunen

Caitlin Kinnunen is an American actress born on November 8, 1991, who grew up on Camano Island, Washington. Her parents, Betsy Stam and Randy Kinnunen, enrolled her and her sister in theatre classes during childhood with the practical goal of helping them overcome any fear of public speaking. Kinnunen was homeschooled before relocating to New York in 2008 to pursue a professional theatre career.

Kinnunen entered Broadway at age 16 as a replacement for the role of Thea in Spring Awakening, marking her professional debut on the Great White Way. In 2010, she served as understudy for the role of Natalie during the national tour of Next to Normal. During this period she also took on screen work, appearing as the lead in the 2011 film Sweet Little Lies and in supporting capacities in It's Kind of a Funny Story, We Need to Talk About Kevin, and The Intern.

Her next Broadway credit came through The Bridges of Madison County, in which she played Carolyn during pre-Broadway performances in 2013 before the production transferred to Broadway the following year. The show ran for 137 performances before closing on May 18, 2014.

Kinnunen's most prominent stage role came through The Prom. She first auditioned for the role of Alyssa in a 2014 reading of the musical but was ultimately cast as lead character Emma Nolan. She performed the role in Atlanta in 2016 before the production moved to Broadway in 2018, where it ran for 23 previews and 309 regular performances, closing on August 11, 2019. During the show's Broadway run, Kinnunen and co-star Isabelle McCalla shared a kiss during their appearance at the 2018 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, an moment that drew national attention as the first LGBT kiss in the parade's history. Her performance earned her a 2019 Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical.

Beyond Broadway, Kinnunen originated a lead role in May 2024 in the play Choice, written by Winnie Holzman, at McCarter Theatre Center in New Jersey. In December 2025, she began starring as Margaret Crane, the inventor of the home pregnancy test, in an Off-Broadway production of Predictor, a play by Jennifer Blackmer.

In a 2019 interview with Nylon, Kinnunen disclosed that she was dating a woman, having previously identified as a straight ally, and has since come out as bisexual and queer. She also lives with type 1 diabetes.