Victoria Clark

Victoria Clark (born October 10, 1959) is an American actress, musical theatre singer and director. Clark has performed in numerous Broadway musicals and in other theatre, film and television works. Her soprano voice can also be heard on various cast albums and several animated films. In 2008, she released her first solo album titled Fifteen Seconds of Grace. A five-time Tony Award nominee, Clark won her first Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical in 2005 for her performance in The Light in the Piazza. She also won the Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, and the Joseph Jefferson Award for the role. She won a second Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical in 2023 for her performance in Kimberly Akimbo. Life and career Clark was born and raised in Dallas, Texas, the daughter of Lorraine and Banks Clark. She studied the piano and attended the Hockaday School, an all-girls school in Dallas. She attended the Interlochen Arts Academy before going to Yale University, graduating in 1982. At Yale, at the age of eighteen, she sang the role of Mabel in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Pirates of Penzance. She also sang the title role in Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience, and directed a production of Ruddigore for the Yale Gilbert & Sullivan Society. After college, Clark studied at New York University's Musical Theatre Master's Program at Tisch as a stage director and began to direct operas and musicals professionally. Although she continues to direct, she has primarily focused on singing and acting. Clark's stage work includes understudying in the original Broadway production of Sunday in the Park with George (she never went on) and roles in the Broadway musicals Guys and Dolls (1992–93), A Grand Night for Singing (1993–94), How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1995–96, as Smitty), Titanic (1997–99, creating the role of Alice Beane), Cabaret (1999–2000, as Fraulein Kost) and Urinetown (2003, as Penelope Pennywise), as well as numerous roles Off-Broadway, in national tours and in regional theatre. She played Doris MacAfee in the City Center Encores! production of Bye Bye Birdie in 2004.