Elicia MacKenzie

Elicia MacKenzie is a Canadian musical theatre actress born in 1985 in Moncton, New Brunswick. She grew up in Surrey, British Columbia, where she participated in children's choirs and singing competitions. At 15, she worked at De Dutch Pannekoek House in Vancouver, and at 16 she auditioned for Canadian Idol, where she was passed over on the grounds that she sounded too oriented toward musical theatre. She graduated in 2008 from the musical theatre program at Capilano College, having appeared in productions including a 2007 staging of High School Musical in North Vancouver, in which she played Gabriella.

MacKenzie's professional career began through the 2008 CBC Television competition How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, which she entered after her uncle noticed the audition call. She had been preparing to take a role as a wicked stepsister in a community theatre production of Cinderella and was also considering a career in massage therapy at the time. Thousands of people auditioned in early 2008, and MacKenzie competed against 47 other finalists, who were eliminated through a combination of judges' decisions and viewer voting. Once the final two contestants were selected, the winner was determined solely by fan votes. MacKenzie defeated Janna Polzin of Woodstock, Ontario, who had been widely expected to win. Composer and judge Andrew Lloyd Webber described MacKenzie as "the dark horse" of the competition.

Winning the contest earned MacKenzie the lead role of Maria in the Toronto revival of The Sound of Music, which ran from October 2008 through January 2010. The production was her first professional acting credit, and reviews were nearly uniformly positive. The show's success during the economic recession was credited in large part to MacKenzie's performance.

Following The Sound of Music, MacKenzie was cast as Sherrie Christian in Mirvish Productions' Rock of Ages at Toronto's Royal Alexandra Theatre, where she performed from April 2010 through January 2011. She subsequently appeared in the role on the first U.S. tour of the production, which included a Broadway engagement in 2010. In 2011, she played Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, a Ross Petty Productions pantomime staged at Toronto's Elgin Theatre from November 2011 through January 2012.

MacKenzie is represented by The Talent House in Toronto and Carrier Talent Management in Vancouver.