Rising up in Downers Grove, Ailing., Patten was an early bloomer, staging house live shows in her lounge when she was 3. “Apparently, the primary tune I sang was a Hank Williams tune, ‘Lengthy Gone Lonesome Blues,’ the place he talks about drowning himself in a river as a result of his girl left him,” she mentioned. Commercials and theater roles quickly adopted.
Patten made her Broadway debut in “Enjoyable Residence.” In 2021, she obtained a Tony for her function in “Jagged Little Tablet,” however the present was criticized for altering Patten’s character, Jo, from seemingly nonbinary to homosexual and cisgender when the manufacturing moved from Boston to Broadway. In 2021, Patten launched a mea culpa, within the type of a video dialog with the trans author and activist Shakina Nayfack. “There’s quite a bit I want was dealt with in a different way,” Patten mentioned, trying again. “However I do really feel grateful that even with one thing that was clearly a painful second, I feel it has a possible to maneuver issues ahead within the business.”
Like Patten, Renée additionally started acting at an early age, successful singing competitions by the point she was 12. “I believed I used to be going to be a Christian music artist,” she mentioned. In highschool, nonetheless, she fell in love with the theater, and at 22, inside three months of arriving in New York, she was provided roles in three Broadway reveals. “I picked the flop,” she mentioned of “Massive Fish.”
Then got here a starring function in “Frozen,” although her run was minimize quick by the coronavirus pandemic. “Each night time I’d see these little ladies, Black ladies, ladies of colour, sporting Elsa, Anna, Olaf,” she mentioned. “They have been simply so enthusiastic about their favourite characters, and about attending to see the leads of a present being performed by girls of colour. I understand how impactful that’s, as a result of I do know that, rising up, I by no means noticed it.”
Supply: NY Times