Life and career[edit]
Lawrence grew up near Baltimore, Maryland. Her father was music professor at Towson University, and her mother taught lower school music. She attended Cincinnati Conservatory for a year and then returned to Baltimore to attend classes at Towson, work as a waitress and consider whether to begin a career in theatre. By the early 1990s, Lawrence began to perform in children's theatre and then adult musicals at a dinner theatre in Maryland.[1]
At the Signature Theatre (Arlington, Virginia) in the 1990s, Lawrence played, among other roles, Marta in Company, Little Red Riding Hood in Into the Woods and Sally Bowles in Cabaret (1995),[2] earning Helen Hayes Award nominations for all three roles and winning for Into the Woods for Outstanding Supporting Actress, Resident Musical.[3] She played the daughter in Kander and Ebb's Over and Over in 1999.[4]
She played Frenchy in a Grease national tour and made her Broadway debut as a replacement for various characters in the original Broadway production of Les Misérables, playing Eponine in 1998 and 1999. She was in the original Off-Broadway cast of Urinetown and returned to the show on Broadway as a replacement, eventually playing Little Sally in 2002 and 2003.[1][5]
Other roles include Hillary Clinton in Monica! The Musical at the New York Musical Theatre Festival and a role in O. Henry's Lovers at the Goodspeed Playhouse in 2003.[6] In 2005, she was in Two Gentlemen of Verona in the role of "Lucetta", produced by The Public Theater at the Delacorte Theater (New York City).[7]
On television, she has appeared as Joyce on the TV soap opera One Life to Live.[1]
Lawrence was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Gladys in the 2006 Broadway revival of The Pajama Game. She also played Mother and Buddahdalirama in the 2009 revival of Hair.[5] She starred as Louise in Broadway's 2016 production of "Holiday Inn, The New Irving Berlin Musical", at Studio 54.
Personal life[edit]
In 1999, she married actor and singer Kevin Kern.[8]