Elizabeth A. Davis

Elizabeth A. Davis is an American actress and musician born in Dumas, Texas, and raised in Channing, Texas. She is the daughter of Melody (née Brown) and Frank Davis, and has a brother named Jonathan. Her father served as superintendent of the Channing Independent School District, and both parents have backgrounds in the arts; her mother is a former speech coach and teacher who earned a master's degree in Speech Communication from West Texas A&M University in 1982. Davis graduated from Channing High School before earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Baylor University and a Master of Fine Arts from the Case Western Reserve University–Cleveland Play House acting program in Cleveland, Ohio. While studying at Baylor, she met her husband, Jordan Richard, a television director. Davis plays the violin.

Her professional career began while she was still a college student, performing the lead role in the Texas Musical Drama at Palo Duro Canyon State Park. She went on to build an extensive record in regional and Off-Broadway theater. Among her regional credits, Davis played Sister James in Doubt at Gulfshore Playhouse in Naples, Florida, starred as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Cleveland Playhouse, and portrayed Célimène in a New Jersey Shakespeare Festival production of The Misanthrope. She also understudied the lead female role in the New World Stages production of The 39 Steps and starred in The Starship Astov at the Midtown International Theatre Festival, earning a MITF Best Actress nomination. At Theatre Row, she played Emily Dickinson in Emily, a performance that won her the New York Innovative Theater Award for Outstanding Actress in a Lead Role. Her Off-Broadway work includes the role of Kay in Wolves at the 59E59 Theatre.

Davis is best known for originating the role of Réza, the Czech roommate of leading lady Cristin Milioti, in Once, a stage musical adaptation of the Academy Award-winning film. She first developed the role at the American Repertory Theatre at Harvard University and subsequently at the New York Theatre Workshop before the production transferred to Broadway, where it opened on March 18, 2012, and received eleven Tony nominations, including Best Musical. Her final performance as Réza was on March 24, 2013. The role earned Davis a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical in 2012.

In May 2013, Davis joined Christopher Lloyd and composer Duncan Sheik in Classic Stage Company's production of Bertolt Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle. The following year, she starred in Four Last Things at the American Globe Theater from April through May 2014. In 2015, she received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance in Allegro. Beginning in May 2022, Davis starred as Thomas Jefferson in the American Repertory Theater production of 1776, which also appeared among her Broadway credits.

Her screen work includes the role of the Romanian character Nadia on the New York-shot series Taxi: Brooklyn, an appearance in the "Ability" episode of FOX's Fringe, and a role on One Life to Live.