Carrie Manolakos

Carrie Manolakos (born February 16, 1984) is an American singer-songwriter and musical theatre actress whose Broadway career spanned from 2001 to 2018. A native of Syracuse, New York, she grew up participating in community theater at Syracuse Stage beginning at age ten and later attended Manlius Pebble Hill School. She went on to study at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.

Manolakos first joined the touring company of Mamma Mia!, performing in the ensemble for six months before being elevated to the role of Sophie Sheridan. That promotion led to an invitation to join the Broadway production, where she replaced Carey Anderson and made her first performance on June 4, 2008. In February 2009 it was announced that she would join the second national tour of Wicked as the standby for Elphaba. Her Broadway credits also include Dear Evan Hansen.

Beyond her principal stage roles, Manolakos accumulated a wide range of concert and workshop appearances throughout this period. In 2008 she appeared in Spare Some Change: NYC Artists for Barack Obama, directed by Ryan Mekenian, alongside Shaina Taub, Seth Rudetsky, Joe Iconis, Lindsay Mendez, and Celia Keenan-Bolger. On June 25, 2010, she performed at the Yale Institute for Music Theatre Workshops as Athena in The Daughters, a musical following the three daughters of Zeus. She also participated in a concert celebrating Alanis Morissette on September 1, 2010, and joined Peter Lerman for his debut concert at the Laurie Beechman Theatre on November 1, 2010. In the summer of 2011, she appeared as Night Terrors in the La Jolla Playhouse production of Sleeping Beauty Wakes, and that fall she starred as Katie in the rock musical Chix 6 at the Queens Theatre.

Manolakos released her debut album, Echo, on April 2, 2012, produced by Dominick Amendum and Justin Goldner. The album debuted in the top 100 of the iTunes pop charts. Earlier that year she had starred as Marianne Reilly in the first run of Seth Rudetsky's Disaster! at Triad Theatre. On April 23, 2012, a recording of her performing Radiohead's "Creep" live at Le Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village went viral after being picked up by the Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, The New Yorker, and Gawker, which published it under the title "Eargasm." Following that exposure, she was profiled as number one on ELLE's 30 Under 30: The Essential Names to Know. On December 31, 2012, she made a brief onstage appearance with Phish performing "Tweezer Reprise."

In 2013, Manolakos led Hit List, a concert based on the fictional musical created for the television series Smash, taking over the role from Katharine McPhee. That same year she appeared as Lizzie Borden in Theatre Under The Stars's production of Lizzie, a credit that also yielded a studio cast recording. She performed at the City of Hope: Broadway Blows Back benefit concert on November 26, 2012, aiding communities affected by Hurricane Sandy, and appeared at Broadway Battles Bullying on April 14, 2014, at Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.

In 2015, a demo from Frank Wildhorn's Death Note: The Musical was released featuring Manolakos alongside Eric Anderson. That May she took part in NBC's The Red Nose Day Special, performing alongside Peter Dinklage and Coldplay. She also appeared as Florence in a production of Chess developed in collaboration with Wharton Center and the Michigan State University Department of Theater. In February 2016, she participated in a reading for The Greatest Showman on Earth alongside Cynthia Erivo and Keala Settle. Manolakos launched a PledgeMusic campaign in March 2015 to fund a second album, reaching her goal on May 18, 2015. That album, The 44th Chord, was released on May 3, 2019.