Kim Criswell

Kim Criswell is an American actress and musical entertainer born on July 19, 1957, in Hampton, Virginia. She grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she attended Hixson High School before enrolling in the musical theatre program at the University of Cincinnati's College Conservatory of Music. Following her studies, she relocated to New York City and secured a role in the touring company of Annie, which preceded her Broadway debut.

Criswell made her Broadway debut in 1981 in The First, playing Hilda in the ensemble. She went on to appear in Nine in 1982, taking on the role of Francesca and later serving as the first replacement for Claudia. In 1983, she played the Narrator and Sixth Woman in Baby. Her Broadway work continued with Stardust in 1986, in which she performed as a soloist, and she concluded her Broadway run in 1989 with The Threepenny Opera at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, where she played Lucy Brown. That same year, she received the Helen Hayes Award for her 1988 performance in Side by Side by Sondheim at the Olney Theatre in Washington.

Beyond Broadway, Criswell played Grizabella in the 1985–1986 Los Angeles production of Cats and portrayed Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar at Paper Mill Playhouse. In 1991, she presented her one-woman show, Doin What Comes Naturally, at the Shaw Theatre in London. The following year, she relocated to London after being invited to play Annie Oakley in Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun at the Prince of Wales Theatre, a role she has maintained as her primary base ever since.

Her subsequent stage work in London and beyond included Dames at Sea in 1996 as Mona Kent, The Slow Drag in 1997 as June Wedding, Of Thee I Sing in 1998 as Diana Deaveraux, and Wonderful Town in 1999 as Ruth Sherwood. She played Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes at Grange Park Opera in 2002, Mrs. Sally Adams in Call Me Madam at Goodspeed Opera House in 2004, and The Witch in Into the Woods in 2006. That same year, she appeared as The Old Woman in Candide at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, and returned to that venue in 2009 to play The Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music. In 2012, she starred in Bernstein's Candide at Vienna's Volksoper. Her later stage credits include Hysteria in 2011 as Mrs. Castellari and the role of Margaret White in Carrie at the Southwark Playhouse in London in 2015.

Criswell has also performed as a featured soloist with leading American symphony orchestras. On August 1, 2009, she appeared at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in a celebration of classic MGM film musicals, performing songs including "The Trolley Song," "Over the Rainbow," "Get Happy," and "I Got Rhythm," as well as "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" in a duet with Seth MacFarlane. In August 2010, she returned to the Royal Albert Hall for a Rodgers and Hammerstein evening with the John Wilson Orchestra, joined by opera singer Rod Gilfry. On October 4, 2009, she was a featured artist at the Broadway to West End Gala at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

Her screen work includes a role as Georgie Maguire in the 1997 film The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous. As a recording artist, Criswell has released several solo albums, among them The Human Cry in 1993, The Lorelei in 1994, Back to Before in 1999, and Something to Dance About.