Kathleen Marshall

Kathleen Marshall is an American director, choreographer, and creative consultant born on September 28, 1962, in Madison, Wisconsin. She attended Taylor Allderdice High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1980, and went on to earn a degree from Smith College in Massachusetts in 1985. Early in her career, Marshall performed with Pittsburgh-area theater companies, including the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera.

Marshall made her Broadway performing debut in 1988 in The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Her transition into choreography began when she served as an assistant to her brother Rob Marshall, who choreographed Kiss of the Spider Woman in 1993. The siblings continued to collaborate on several productions through the following years, including She Loves Me (1993), Damn Yankees (1994), Victor/Victoria (1995), and Seussical (2000). Among her early choreography credits as a lead artist are Swinging on a Star (1995), 1776 (1997), Kiss Me, Kate (1999), Ring Round the Moon (1999), and Follies (2001).

From 1996 through 2000, Marshall served as artistic director of the Encores! series of staged musical revivals, during which she choreographed The Boys from Syracuse, Li'l Abner, and Call Me Madam, and both directed and choreographed Babes in Arms and Wonderful Town. The Encores! production of Wonderful Town subsequently transferred to Broadway in November 2003 and ran through January 2005. For that production, Marshall received Tony Award nominations for both Best Direction of a Musical and Best Choreography, winning in the choreography category — her first of three Tony Awards for Best Choreography.

Marshall directed and choreographed the Broadway revival of The Pajama Game, which opened in February 2006 and marked the Broadway acting debut of Harry Connick Jr. That same year she also choreographed Little Shop of Horrors (2003) and directed and choreographed Two Gentlemen of Verona for the Public Theater (2005). Her second Tony Award for Best Choreography came in 2006. In 2007, she directed and choreographed a Broadway revival of Grease, with its cast selected through viewer votes on the NBC reality series Grease: You're the One That I Want!, which Marshall judged. She also directed a television movie adaptation of Once Upon a Mattress, broadcast on ABC in December 2005.

Marshall directed and choreographed a Broadway revival of Cole Porter's Anything Goes beginning in April 2011, with Sutton Foster in the role of Reno Sweeney. She received Tony nominations for both directing and choreography for that production, winning her third Tony Award for Best Choreography. The following year, she directed and choreographed Nice Work If You Can Get It, which opened on Broadway in April 2012. Additional stage work includes In Transit (2016) and the direction of Ever After at Papermill Playhouse during its 2015–16 season.

In 2021, Marshall returned to Anything Goes as director and choreographer for a London revival at the Barbican Theatre, for which she received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Theatre Choreographer. In 2023, she directed and choreographed the world premiere of Sinatra: The Musical at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

Outside of her theatrical work, Marshall received the Smith College Medal in February 2009. She married producer and former agent Scott Landis in September 2009, and the couple have twins, Ella and Nathaniel, born in May 2010.