Shoshana Bean

Shoshana Bean moves fluidly among stage acting, singing, songwriting, and recording projects. Her contributions surface on numerous cast albums as well as on independent releases that have appeared on Billboard’s jazz and blues tallies while exploring territory from classic pop to vintage soul. Born in Olympia, Washington, and raised in Portland, she grew up in the Pacific Northwest. After earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, she settled in New York City. Early Off-Broadway performances soon opened doors to a national tour of Leader of the Pack and to the original Tony-winning Broadway production of Hairspray. In 2004 she replaced Idina Menzel in the role of Elphaba in Wicked. While sustaining a high profile in theater, she initiated a parallel recording career near the close of the decade with the album Superhero (2008). Occasional singles appeared in the following years, yet only with O’Farrell Street (2013) did she return to concentrated musical work. The 2014 EP Shadows to Light became her first Billboard-charting project after entering the blues list. Additional singles preceded Spectrum (2018), which ascended to number one on the jazz chart. By that time she had also begun a sustained collaboration with Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox and collected further honors for her continuing stage career.