Donna Lynne Champlin

Donna Lynne Champlin (born January 21, 1971) is an American actress, dancer and singer from New York City. She is best known for playing Paula Proctor on The CW comedy-drama series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Early life Champlin was born in Rochester, New York, to a technical writer mother and a scientist father. She participated in various lessons, theatre productions, and national and international competitions throughout her childhood, in voice, piano, flute, theatre and dance. Champlin went on to study musical theatre at Carnegie Mellon University, graduating with her BFA in 1993, and studied abroad as a 1992 Advanced Acting Scholar in Shakespeare and Chekhov at the University of Oxford. In 1992 she won the Princess Grace Foundation Award in Theatre. While still in college, she performed as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz with Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera. Career Champlin took on the title role of Very Warm for May, her Broadway debut in James Joyce's The Dead, then By Jeeves, Hollywood Arms, Sweeney Todd, Billy Elliot the Musical, and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, for which she won the 2007 Obie Award. Other credits include: No, No Nanette, Very Good Eddie, First Lady Suite, Harold and Maude, My Life with Albertine, Bloomer Girl, and Jolson. She also performed with Len Cariou in the Simply Sondheim inaugural concert which celebrated the opening of the Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts.