Linedy Genao

Linedy Genao is an American actress born on May 27, 1991, in Brooklyn, New York, to a Dominican family. At age ten, she relocated with her family to Hamden, Connecticut, where she began performing in plays during middle school and at Hamden High School. After applying to both theatre and business programs, she chose to study business at the University of Connecticut and subsequently worked in banking while continuing to participate in community theater.

Genao made her Broadway debut in 2015 as an original cast member of On Your Feet!, a musical centered on the lives of Gloria and Emilio Estefan. She secured the role through an open casting call. When Broadway theaters closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, she returned to remote banking work and considered leaving the entertainment industry entirely. Her decision to remain in theater came when she was offered an understudy position in Dear Evan Hansen upon its Broadway reopening. She had previously served as a vacation swing on the first national tour of that production before the pandemic. In late 2022, she took on the role of Gloria in a staging of On Your Feet! at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey.

In 2023, Genao starred as the title character in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Bad Cinderella at the Imperial Theatre on Broadway, with the production opening officially on March 23, 2023, and closing on June 4, 2023. She was the first Latina woman to originate a leading role in a Lloyd Webber production. Genao subsequently appeared on Broadway in The Great Gatsby, playing the role of Myrtle Wilson, a credit that extended her stage work through 2024.