Judy Kuhn

 ( Official Website ) 

After college, she moved to Boston, where she waited tables and studied acting. After appearing in summer stock, Kuhn moved back to New York.

Her next role of Cosette in the 1987 multiple award-winning Broadway production of Les Misérables brought her the first Tony Award nomination, as Best Featured Actress in a Musical (1987), and the Drama Desk Award (1987) nomination as Outstanding Featured Actress in A Musical.(no author). "'Me and My Girl' and 'Les Miserables' Top Nominations for Drama Desk Awards", The Associated Press, May 10, 1987, Domestic News

Kuhn appeared in the Trevor Nunn-directed Chess, with music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus and lyrics by Tim Rice in the 1988 Broadway transfer from the West End, playing one of the main roles (Florence Vassy). Despite the show's success in London, Trevor Nunn decided to rework it for Broadway from a pop/rock opera as staged in London into a more conventional musical theater piece with a new book by Richard Nelson. As a result, the new show was greeted with mostly negative reviews and closed after less than a two-month run, on June 25, 1988. Kuhn's performance in the musical received praise from the critics. "Her beautiful pop-soprano voice is the show's chief pleasure. She acts the sympathetic, gutsy role with spirit and heart", wrote Variety. "Reviews for the Broadway Production. 'Chess'. See Humm, Variety, 29 April 1988" squareone.org, accessed January 2, 2014 The Village Voice noted that "she pours a river of feeling and lush vocal tone into...the role". She garnered her second Tony Award nomination, this time as Best Actress in a Musical (1988), and a 1988 Drama Desk Award nomination as Outstanding Actress in a Musical. In addition, The Original Broadway Cast recording of the musical was nominated for a Grammy Award.

She reprised her role of Florence Vassy later in January 1989 in a Carnegie Hall concert performance with the rest of the Broadway cast, which was a benefit for the Emergency Shelter Inc. "'Chess' Cast to Perform In Carnegie Hall Benefit" The New York Times, January 3, 1989 She also performed in a Chess concert version in 1989 in Skellefteå, Sweden, during a chess World Cup final tournament, where she joined with Tommy Körberg and Murray Head, two principal actors from 1986 West End production of the musical.

Kuhn made her London debut in 1989, when she starred in the West End production of Metropolis, with Jeremy Kingston, reviewing for The Times (London) writing "I greatly enjoyed Kuhn's edgy, angular performance."Kingston, Jeremy. "City of dreadful night; Review of 'Metropolis' at the Piccadilly Theatre", The Times (London), March 9, 1989, Issue 63337 (no page number) She received an Olivier Award nomination as Best Actress in a Musical.

In 1993, Kuhn played in the Roundabout Theater Company revival of She Loves Me, portraying Amalia Balash, a young Budapest shopgirl who is unaware that the co-worker she despises is the young man with whom she's been sharing an anonymous correspondence. Her performance earned her a Tony Award nomination as Best Actress in a Musical. The 1993 Broadway recording of this revival does not feature Kuhn, who left the production before the album was produced.

In December 1993, Kuhn played the role of Betty Schaefer in the U.S premiere production of Sunset Boulevard at the Shubert Theatre in Los Angeles. The L.A production recorded a cast album, which is the only unabridged cast recording of the show with the original London recording being cut by thirty minutes.

Regional theatre credits in the early 1990s include The Glass Menagerie at the McCarter Theatre, Princeton, New Jersey, in 1991 as Laura and Martin Guerre, at the Hartford Stage Company, Hartford, Connecticut, in 1993. Kuhn reprised her role as Cosette in 1995, for the 10th anniversary concert performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London, which was released on DVD as .

Kuhn sang in the second annual benefit concert for The Actors' Fund of Funny Girl in September 2002 at the New Amsterdam Theatre, with different actresses taking on the role of Fanny Brice. She sang "Who Are You Now?" and "People" of which Andrew Gans of Playbill wrote: she "provided an intense, moving, full-voiced 'People,' sensationally belting 'are the luckiest peeeeeeople (wow!) in the wooorld'."

Kuhn's Off-Broadway and regional theater credits in this period include: As Thousands Cheer (1998) Off-Broadway at the Drama Dept., Greenwich House Theater; Strike up the Band (1998) Off-Broadway Encores! Concerts at New York City Center; the title role in The Ballad of Little Jo (2000) at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago; Eli's Comin (2001) Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre Company (for which she won an Obie Award); The Highest Yellow (2004) at the Signature Theater in Virginia; and Three Sisters (2005) In a new adaption by Craig Lucas at the Intiman Theatre in Seattle, Washington.

Kuhn portrayed Fosca in the Off-Broadway Classic Stage Company revival of the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical Passion from its opening in February 2013 through its scheduled closing in April 2013. Kuhn had previously played Fosca in the Stephen Sondheim celebration production in 2002 at the Kennedy Center.

In 2013, Kuhn originated the role of Helen Bechdel in the off-Broadway Public Theater production of the musical Fun Home, which began its run September 30, 2013 and opened officially on October 22, 2013. The run was extended multiple times and closed on January 12, 2014. She played the same role in the Broadway production, which ran from April 2015 to September 10, 2016, at the Circle in the Square.

Kuhn played the role of "Golde" in the Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof, starting on November 22, 2016. She played Golde in the Menier Chocolate Factory (London) production of Fiddler on the Roof which began on November 23, 2018, and ran to March 9, 2019.

From March to May 2024, Kuhn appeared in the musical Unknown Soldier by Daniel Goldstein and Michael Friedman at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.

In June 2024, Kuhn portrayed Ida Straus in Titanic at New York City Center.

Kuhn sang the title role in the 1995 Disney animated film Pocahontas. The film's score won an Academy Award, and the soundtrack reached #1 on the Billboard 200, selling over 2.5 million copies. The film included Kuhn's rendition of the song "Colors of the Wind", which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and a Grammy Award.

Kuhn also sang as Pocahontas in the straight-to-video sequel , in "If You Can Dream", a Disney Princess song, and the 2023 live-action/animated short Once Upon a Studio. Kuhn briefly appeared in the film Long Time Since (1998) and supplied the vocals for the movie's soundtrack, which includes a rendition of Auld Lang Syne.

She has performed in concert at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Avery Fisher Hall in Manhattan, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and at the Royal Albert Hall in London. She has performed in a solo cabaret/nightclub act at, for example, Joe's Pub at the Public Theater in October 2007 and the Iridium in New York in January 2008. She performed her solo concert at Feinstein's at Loews Regency in March 2012.

Her first solo album, Just in Time: Judy Kuhn Sings Jule Styne, was released on January 31, 1995. Kuhn's second solo album, Serious Playground: The Songs of Laura Nyro, was released on October 2, 2007. In 2013, she released her third album All This Happiness, which contains pop, jazz, cabaret, and blues songs, along with the title song of the album, from the Stephen Sondheim musical Passion.

Kuhn also teaches a song interpretation class at Michael Howard Studios in New York City, where she studied earlier in her career. Andrew Gans of Playbill wrote that Kuhn "possesses one of the richest and most exciting instruments around; it is also an extremely versatile and rangy voice" and that Kuhn has "remarkable interpretive skills".

• Judy Kuhn's Myspace Page
• Judy Kuhn's 2007 XM Satellite Radio interview
• darkestnight: the works of Alain Boublil & Claude-Michel Schönberg
• Judy Kuhn's Serious Playground Album on Ghostlight Records