Elena Shaddow

Elena Shaddow is an American actress and singer originally from Chagrin Falls, Ohio. She studied at New York University's Steinhardt school, where she earned a music degree and met her future husband, Michael Harrington. The two married on October 24, 2004, and have two children, a daughter born in 2008 and a son born in 2011.

Shaddow's Broadway career spans from 1987 to 2016 and encompasses a range of musicals and dramas. She made her Broadway debut as Cosette in Les Misérables in 2001, followed by the role of Susan in Sweet Smell of Success in 2002. Subsequent Broadway credits include Claudia in Nine (2003), Hodel in Fiddler on the Roof (2004), Laura Fairlie in The Woman in White (2005), Anne Dindon in the Tony Award-winning revival of La Cage aux Folles (April 6, 2010 – April 4, 2011), and Ottilie Schell in the drama The Visit (2015). She can be heard on the cast recordings of Sweet Smell of Success and the new Broadway cast recording of Nine, as well as on the recordings of Illyria, Carols for a Cure, and the original cast recording of The Water Coolers.

Her work in national tours has also brought significant recognition. She played Clara Johnson in Adam Guettel's The Light in the Piazza on the 2006–2007 U.S. national tour, a role for which she received a Helen Hayes Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress, Non-Resident Production. She was replaced in that role by Katie Rose Clarke upon her departure in 2007. In 2018, she returned to touring as Anna in the Lincoln Center production of The King and I.

Shaddow has accumulated two Helen Hayes Award nominations for Best Actress. The first came for her work in the world premiere of Senor Discretion Himself at Arena Stage in 2005, and the second for her performance in The Light in the Piazza tour in 2007. She has performed twice at the Tony Awards and has appeared on The Today Show and The Rosie O'Donnell Show.

Her regional stage work includes Francesca Johnson in the world premiere of Jason Robert Brown's The Bridges of Madison County at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in August 2013, where she starred alongside Steven Pasquale. Other regional credits include Maria in The Sound of Music at Paper Mill Playhouse (2012), Cinderella in Into the Woods at The Muny (2015), Sara Brown in Guys and Dolls at Bucks County Playhouse (2017), and Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady at North Carolina Theatre (2004). In London, she performed as Magnolia in Show Boat at Royal Albert Hall in 2006. Off-Broadway, she played Brooke in The Water Coolers (2002) and Kirsten Arnesen in Days of Wine and Roses (2023).

In March 2022, Shaddow returned to The Light in the Piazza for a concert at London's Alexandra Palace Theatre, this time in the role of Margaret — the mother of the character Clara she had played on the national tour fifteen years earlier.