Jenn Colella

Jenn Colella (born Jennifer Lin Colella; September 22, 1974) is an American comedienne, actress, and singer. She began her career as a comedienne in Los Angeles before deciding to refocus her career path and look to musical theatre.

She made hr Broadway debut as Sissy opposite Matt Cavenaugh in the musical “Urban Cowboy” in 2003. She went on to star in “High Fidelity,” and as Hedda Hopper in “Chaplin.” Her Off-Broadway credits include, among others, “Closer Than Ever” and “Slut.” She played Daisy in “Sideshow” at the Kennedy Center.

She has returned to Broadway in the musical If/Then in 2014.

Early life
Growing up in Summerville, S.C., Colella began singing early. She and mother frequently sang Barbra Streisand around the house, and while there weren’t many theatrical training opportunities in town, Colella took advantage of what was available.

“There was a woman who taught out of her garage, but my mom was a teacher and couldn’t afford the fees, so I traded odd jobs for classes. I was scrawny at 15 but I painted that lady’s entire house. And it was worth it. The group did ‘Oklahoma,’ and I got to play to Gertie.” Before leaving South Carolina for the West Coast, she graduated from college and did some professional acting at the respected Trustus Theater in Columbia. She earned a master of fine arts in acting from the University of California, Irvine, and remained in L.A. determined to go the sitcom route. During this time, she got into standup.

Theatre career
Today, Colella is playing “one half of a lesbian couple in the hot new Broadway show “If/Then,” currently playing at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.

“I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to play a gay character in ‘If/Then,’ especially someone like Anne,” says Colella, 39. “She’s a sassy fun-loving girl not unlike myself who’s in a relationship with Kate [LaChanze’s character]. Anne is madly in love and very sincere about taking it to the next level and actually tying the knot. It’s a very real look at a contemporary lesbian relationship. You don’t see a lot of that in musical theater.”

Jenn Colella has been a familiar face in the New York theatre scene since starring as Sissy in Urban Cowboy on Broadway, for which she received an Outer Critic's Circle Award Nomination. Since then, she has appeared in Broadway's High Fidelity, starred in the world premiere of The Times They Are A-Changin' at the Old Globe Theatre, and recently performed in Beautiful Girls, a musical tribute honoring Stephen Sondheim at the World Festival of Theatre in Colorado Springs. Off-Broadway credits include Don't Quit Your Night Job (Ha! Comedy Club), Slut (The Actor's Theatre), and The Great American Trailer Park Musical (NYMF). Most recently, Jenn appeared as Hedda Hopper in Limelight: The Story of Charlie Chaplin at the La Jolla Playhouse. Jenn has also appeared off-Broadway in Lucky Guy at the Little Shubert Theatre.

Stage, film, and television career
Before journeying to NYC in 2003, Jenn was a stand-up comedienne at the world famous Laugh Factory and at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles.

“It was challenging. If you fail in standup you can’t blame anyone but yourself. But it definitely increased my confidence and now there’s really nothing that scares frightens me in terms of performance. Scarier were the fellow comics. They can be a dark bunch.”

On television, Jenn has appeared on the Oxygen Network as the Co-host of Can You Tell?, ABC's The Cashmere Mafia, FX's Rescue Me, CBS's The Good Wife, and, most recently, PBS's Tribute to Stephen Sondheim with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center.

Film credits include Lay It Down for Good (lead) and Uncertainty (playing opposite Manoel Felciano, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Lynn Collins).

Personal life
Early in her acting career, Broadway’s Jenn Colella was counseled that it would be unwise for her to be out professionally. When casting directors see you as lesbian, her advisors reasoned, they become less likely to cast you in straight romantic leads. There was a time, Colella says, when she would have been reluctant to portray a lesbian on stage much less talk about her sexuality openly. But in recent years her outlook has definitely changed.

She says changing attitudes overall helped her loosen up. “As I became older and wiser, and began noticing straight comrades realizing it was no longer fair to discriminate against gay and lesbian actors, being out got easier,” Colella says. “Also, I began to feel a responsibility to be out. I used to think it was entirely a personal choice, but now I think being out is also taking responsibility for others who may not have the courage to do so.”

Last year Colella was involved romantically with a male actor, but she doesn’t identify as bisexual because the vast majority of her relationships have been with women. Currently she is in a committed relationship with a woman who is studying for her master’s degree in midwifery.

Prior to taking on “If/Then’s” Anne, Colella was cast as a lesbian just once before. In 2008 she starred off-Broadway as the title character in “The Beebo Brinker Chronicles” based on Ann Bannon’s pulp fiction novel about a young lesbian’s adventures in 1950s Greenwich Village. “Beebo was a real butch,” Colella says. “I wore batteries in my front pockets to alter my center of gravity. My male and feminine energies are pretty equally balanced and in that way I’m more like Anne. But like Beebo, I have been accused of being a bit of a womanizer.”