Melanie La Barrie

Melanie La Barrie is a Trinidad-born actress and singer, born in 1974, who originated the role of Angélique/Nurse in the musical & Juliet on London's West End and on Broadway.

La Barrie's interest in performance began in childhood in Trinidad and Tobago, where school teachers encouraged her to enter junior calypso music competitions. By the age of eight she was performing on stage regularly. Under her birth name, Melanie Hudson, she recorded two calypso LPs in Trinidad. The first, Comin' Out, included the lead single "I Will Always Be There For You," which became a major hit in Trinidad. Her second album, Melanie, followed in 1992.

In 2000, La Barrie was among a select group of actors chosen to perform the Trinidadian play Clear Water in London. During that visit she secured representation and was offered her first role in a musical, Ragtime, in which she made her West End debut as an ensemble member in 2003. The following year she was cast as Ma Rainey in August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at the Liverpool Playhouse. Also in 2004, she joined the original West End cast of Mary Poppins, playing Mrs. Corry in a production directed by Richard Eyre and choreographed and co-directed by Matthew Bourne, alongside Laura Michelle Kelly, Gavin Lee, David Haig, Linzi Hateley, and a young Carrie Hope Fletcher.

La Barrie went on to play Pearl in Daddy Cool in 2007 and Madame Thénardier in Les Misérables in 2008. In 2010, she participated in Royal Shakespeare Company workshops for Matilda in the role of Mrs. Phelps, performing the part in Stratford-upon-Avon and when the production transferred to the Cambridge Theatre in London. In 2018, she took over the role of Madame Morrible in Wicked during the show's twelfth year, appearing alongside Alice Fearn, Sophie Evans, and Bradley Jaden.

La Barrie had previously workshopped the role of Angélique, the Nurse, before it was announced in 2019 that she would originate the part in & Juliet, a jukebox musical featuring songs by Max Martin. The production premiered at the Manchester Opera House, running from 10 September to 12 October 2019, before transferring to the Shaftesbury Theatre, where it began previews on 2 November 2019 and officially opened on 20 November 2019. After performances were suspended in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, La Barrie returned to the role when the show resumed on 24 September 2021, remaining with the production until her departure on 26 March 2022.

In February 2022, La Barrie appeared as one of seven actresses sharing the role of Mama Rose in a one-night-only concert performance of Gypsy at Alexandra Palace in London, alongside Tracie Bennett, Keala Settle, Nichola Hughes, Rebecca Lock, Samantha Spiro, and Sally Ann Triplett. Later that year, she reprised her role of Angélique in the North American premiere of & Juliet at the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto, which ran from 22 June to 14 August 2022. She continued with the production as it transferred to Broadway, where & Juliet opened at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre on 28 October 2022, with an official opening on 17 November 2022, marking La Barrie's Broadway debut. Her Broadway appearance is also documented in the play Julie, in which she appeared in 2022.

From February 2024 to February 2025, La Barrie played Hermes in the original West End production of Hadestown. She gave her final performance in the role on 9 February 2025, the same day she received a WhatsOnStage Award for Best Supporting Performer in a Musical for that portrayal.