Mandy Gonzalez

With Broadway credits to her name including the musicals Hamilton, Wicked, and In the Heights, Mandy Gonzalez is a singer and actress from California. Born in Valencia and raised in Saugus, her grandmother signed her up for singing lessons in early childhood after noticing her passion for music. The two would sing show tunes in the car together on the way to and from her lessons. Gonzalez got involved in theater during high school, and after spending a year at the California Institute of the Arts, she was offered a job as backing singer for Bette Midler on tour. After traveling across the country with Midler, she put down roots in New York, and before long made her Broadway debut in Elton John's Aida, taking over as Amneris in 2003. Gonzalez's subsequent Broadway shows included originating the role of Nina Rosario in Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights in 2008. She left that show in early 2010 to join the cast of Wicked as Elphaba in March 2010. In the meantime, Gonzalez made her film debut as a singer in 2007's Across the Universe, and picked up television work including guest spots on the daytime drama One Life to Live and CBS' The Good Wife, both in 2009. She appeared in the film Man on a Ledge in 2012 and continued to earn occasional TV guest spots before winning a recurring role on the CBS drama Madam Secretary that lasted multiple seasons. In September 2016, Gonzalez joined Broadway's Hamilton as Angelica Schuyler, Alexander Hamilton's sister-in-law, replacing Renée Elise Goldsberry, who originated the role. In 2017, the Ghostlight label released the her solo debut, Fearless. The seven-track EP featured spare arrangements by Gonzalez of songs for the stage and screen by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bill Sherman, Livingston & Evans, and others. ~ Marcy Donelson