Caissie Levy
Encyclopedia
Caissie Shira Reiser known professionally as Caissie Levy, is a Canadian stage actress and singer.

Early Life

Levy was born Caissie Shira Levy to parents Mark, a general practitioner, and Lisa Levy, an administrator at her husband's practice. She has two elder brothers, Robi and Josh, who are film directors known as The Levy Brothers. Levy and her brothers were raised as Jews and she is understood to have joined Camp Ramah, a Jewish summer camp, at the age of eleven. It was at Camp Ramah that Caissie got her love for the stage, enjoying performing in the camp's all-Hebrew musicals. Levy graduated from Westdale Secondary School
Westdale Secondary School
Westdale Secondary School is a public high school founded in 1931 in Hamilton, Ontario. It is the second oldest high school in the city of Hamilton and is located in Westdale Village, a suburb in the west-end of the city. It is administered by the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board...

 in 1999. Set to study Shakespeare in Canada, Caissie was given the suggestion to audition for New York's American Musical and Dramatic Academy
American Musical and Dramatic Academy
The American Musical and Dramatic Academy , is a college conservatory for the performing arts located in New York City and Los Angeles, California....

 (AMDA); on a whim she did and got in. Caissie has also taught several audition workshops for students in the NYC area.

Career

Levy's big break came when she played the role of Penny Pingleton in both the Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 and U.S. national tour companies of Hairspray
Hairspray (musical)
Hairspray is a musical with music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Scott Wittman and Shaiman and a book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan, based on the 1988 John Waters film Hairspray. The songs include 1960s-style dance music and "downtown" rhythm and blues...

after understudying the role in the Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

 company. During this time, she also covered the role of Amber Von Tussle. Levy graduated from AMDA in 2004; a week later she made a name for herself by playing the role of Maureen Johnson in the U.S. national tour of Rent
Rent (musical)
Rent is a rock musical with music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson based on Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème...

.

In 2008, Levy starred as Elphaba
Elphaba
Elphaba Thropp is a fictional character in Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, as well as in the Broadway and West End adaptations, Wicked. In the original L. Frank Baum book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West is unnamed and little...

 in the Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

 sit-down production of Wicked
Wicked (musical)
Wicked is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman. It is based on the Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West , a parallel novel of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and L. Frank Baum's classic story The Wonderful Wizard...

. She had previously understudied the role on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 and briefly served as standby in Los Angeles. Her first performance took place on January 1, 2008, replacing Eden Espinosa
Eden Espinosa
Eden Erica Espinosa is an American singer and stage actress, who is best known for her performances as Elphaba for the Broadway, Los Angeles and San Francisco productions of the musical Wicked....

. She left the show on May 11 of the same year, and was replaced by her standby Teal Wicks
Teal Wicks
Teal Wicks is an American singer and stage actress, best known for her performance as Elphaba in the Broadway, San Francisco, and Los Angeles productions of the musical Wicked.-Education:...

.

Levy recently starred as Sheila in the Broadway revival of Hair
Hair (musical)
Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot. A product of the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, several of its songs became anthems of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement...

, which began previews on March 6, 2009 and opened March 31, 2009 at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre
Al Hirschfeld Theatre
The Al Hirschfeld Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 302 West 45th Street in midtown-Manhattan.Designed by architect G. Albert Lansburgh for vaudeville promoter Martin Beck, the theatre opened as the Martin Beck Theatre with a production of Madame Pompadour on November 11, 1924. It...

. She left the Broadway cast on March 7, 2010, where she was succeeded by Diana DeGarmo
Diana DeGarmo
Diana Nicole DeGarmo is an American singer and Broadway actress. She finished as the runner-up on the third season of the reality/talent-search television series American Idol, narrowly missing the win by about 2% out of over 65 million votes...

, to open the West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

 revival which began performances April 1, 2010 at the Gielgud Theatre
Gielgud Theatre
The Gielgud Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster, London, at the corner of Rupert Street. The house currently has 889 seats on three levels.-History:...

. The show recently closed September 4, 2010.

Levy is currently originating the role of Molly Jensen in Ghost: The Musical. The musical opened at Manchester Opera House
Manchester Opera House
The Opera House in Quay Street, Manchester, England is a 1,920 seater commercial touring theatre which plays host to touring musicals, ballet, concerts and a Christmas pantomime. It is the sister to the Palace Theatre which is a similar venue in nearby Oxford Street at its junction with Whitworth...

 in March 2011 for a seven week run before transferring to London's West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

 at The Piccadilly Theatre
Piccadilly Theatre
The Piccadilly Theatre is a West End theatre located at 16 Denman Street, behind Piccadilly Circus and adjacent to the Regent Palace Hotel, in the City of Westminster, England.-Early years:Built by Bertie Crewe and Edward A...

 from June 22, 2011.

She can be heard on the cast recording for Hair and Ghost as well as singing, "Please Don't Let Me Go" on the re-release of composer Scott Alan's "Keys". Caissie can also be heard singing "Dear Daddy" on composer Bobby Cronin's album and "I Am Yours" on composer Jonathan Reid Gealt's album "Thirteen Stories Down". All of them are available on iTunes.

Personal Life

On 30th October 2011, Caissie Levy married actor David Reiser in an evening ceremony on Miami Beach, after five years of dating.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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