January LaVoy

January LaVoy is an American actress and audiobook narrator born in Trumbull, Connecticut. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Theater from Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut, where she participated in Theatre Fairfield, the university's resident production company. She subsequently completed a Master of Fine Arts at the National Theatre Conservatory at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts in Colorado.

LaVoy made her Broadway debut on April 27, 2010, when the play Enron opened its Broadway premiere at the Broadhurst Theatre. Her regional theater work spans institutions across the country, including the Denver Center Theatre Company, City Theatre and the Public Theater in Pittsburgh, the Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, and the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. In 2004, the Denver Post awarded her its Ovation Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Portia in the Denver Center Theatre Company's production of The Merchant of Venice. She played the character Risa in a 2007 production of Two Trains Running, which received the Lucille Lortel Award that year. In 2009, she portrayed Helen Keller in Helen Keller Speaks, a play written by Fairfield University politics professor and former teacher John Orman, which dramatizes Keller's social activist views drawn from documented speeches and letters written between 1913 and 1919; the production first performed on March 14, 2009, at the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts at Fairfield University. In the fall of 2012, LaVoy originated the role of Lena in the world premiere of Pearl Cleage's What I Learned in Paris at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia.

Her Off-Broadway credits include Signature Theatre Company's production of Samm-Art Williams' Home, in which she played Woman One/Pattie Mae Wells, as well as productions of Adrienne Kennedy's Funnyhouse of a Negro and the world premiere of Will Eno's Wakey, Wakey alongside Emmy winner Michael Emerson. She also appeared in the world premiere of the musical Coraline at MCC Theater. In 2019, LaVoy received a Lucille Lortel nomination for Outstanding Play, shared with The Mad Ones, Phillip James Brannon, Brad Heberlee, and Carmen M. Herlihy. In 2022, she received two Helen Hayes Award nominations — Outstanding Lead Performer in a Play and Outstanding Direction in a Play, the latter co-nominated with Adam Immervahr — for her work in Anna Deavere Smith's Fires in the Mirror at Theater J.

On television, LaVoy is best known for her recurring role as Noelle Ortiz on the ABC daytime drama One Life to Live. She has also appeared on All My Children, Guiding Light, Guiding Light, Law & Order and its SVU and Criminal Intent franchises, and the medical drama 3 Lbs. Her guest star credits include Elementary, NOS4A2, and Blue Bloods. On film, she appeared in Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds and the short film High Ground.

LaVoy's audiobook career began in 2008, when she recorded her first title under a pseudonym out of concern that the work might conflict with her soap opera roles. She has since recorded dozens of audiobooks for publishers including Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, Penguin Audio, and Macmillan Audio. She has received five Audie Awards and earned nineteen finalist nominations. In 2013, Publishers Weekly named her Audiobook Narrator of the Year through its Listen Up Award, and in 2019 AudioFile designated her a Golden Voice narrator. She has also provided voiceover work for national commercial campaigns, including those for Toll House, Revlon, Home Depot, Danone, and UnitedHealth Group.

LaVoy married Mat Hostetler on September 4, 2011; the two divorced in 2019. She married fellow narrator and author Will Damron in 2022, and the couple resides in Atlanta, Georgia.