Lilli Cooper

Lilli Cooper is an American actress and singer born on March 4, 1990, in New York, New York. The daughter of actor Chuck Cooper and Tisa Farley, she grew up with deep roots in the performing arts; her grandfather acted at the Karamu House in Cleveland. Cooper attended LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts before going on to Vassar College, from which she graduated in 2012.

Cooper's Broadway career began in 2006 when, at fifteen years old, she originated the role of Martha Bessell in Spring Awakening. She later served as the standby for Elphaba in the Broadway production of Wicked. In 2017, she originated the role of Sandy Cheeks in SpongeBob SquarePants, which opened on Broadway on December 4 of that year. Her performance as Julie Nichols in the musical adaptation of the 1982 film Tootsie began with the production's Chicago debut in September 2018, and she reprised the role when the show transferred to Broadway in spring 2019. That performance earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical. Cooper's Broadway work also includes POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive and The Cottage in the Air, with her Broadway appearances spanning from 2006 to 2023.

Prior to her later Broadway credits, Cooper played Hélène Kuragina in the American Repertory Theatre production of Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 in 2015. On the television side, she played the role of Doc in Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock in 2022 and provided the voice of the character Velvette in Hazbin Hotel in 2024. Also in 2022, she participated in the HBO documentary Spring Awakening: Those You've Known, which marked the fifteen-year reunion of the original cast of that musical.

Cooper lives in New York City with her husband Paul. The couple's first son, Bodie, was born in September 2021, and their second son, Desi, was born in April 2024.