Celia Rose Gooding

Gooding was raised in New York, New York. She was born to actress, singer and dancer LaChanze,[2] and Calvin Gooding, who died in the September 11th attacks. She has one sister, Zaya.[3]

Gooding attended the Hackley School in Tarrytown, New York, with her sister,[4] and graduated with honors in performing arts. She occasionally took leaves from high school to do readings for a musical she was involved in developing, Jagged Little Pill. In the workshop during her junior year, she had three hours of tutoring in the morning before rehearsals, to replace regular schooling.[5] Her senior project revolved around her participation in the show's out-of-town tryout at the end of her senior year. Her other training included studying dance at the Alvin Ailey Institute and studying Acting and Film with a concentration in Shakespeare at the Berridge Conservatory in Normandy.[6]

In 2018, Gooding began attending Pace University. She initially double majored in Musical Theatre and Child Psychology; she dropped the latter major during her second and final semester.[7] She left Pace after her freshman year, as rehearsals for the Broadway run of Jagged Little Pill started in September 2019.

Gooding first wanted to become an actor when she watched her mother win the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical for The Color Purple in 2006 on TV. However, she only started participating in musical theatre productions in ninth grade.[8] Throughout her high school experience, Gooding played various roles such as Carmen in the Rosetta LeNoire Musical Theatre Academy's production of Fame.

In 2017, at age 17, Gooding was cast in the first 29-hour reading of Jagged Little Pill,[9] an original musical written by Diablo Cody based on the music of Grammy Award-winning artist Alanis Morissette, that included stars such as Idina Menzel. She originated one of the lead roles of the show, Frankie Healy: a 17-year-old black, bisexual activist who was adopted into an affluent white family in a suburb in Connecticut.[10] She participated in the 2018 lab and later the world premiere of the show at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts in May 2018.[11]

Gooding reprised her role as Frankie when the show transferred to Broadway in November 2019 at the Broadhurst Theatre.[12] She received accolades including Broadway World's Debut of the Month,[9] a Clives Barnes Award nomination,[13] and Broadway.com's Debut of the Year. She was also honored as one of BET's Future 40.[14] She also performed on Late Night with Seth Meyers,[15] Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest,[16] and Good Morning America.[17]

In 2019, Gooding and her mother, LaChanze, made history by becoming the first mother and daughter ever to perform on Broadway at the same time, with LaChanze starring in A Christmas Carol, and Gooding starring in Jagged Little Pill.[18]

Gooding received accolades for her performance in Jagged Little Pill, which closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She received the award for Best Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical at the inaugural Antonyo Awards[19] and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical.[20] She also participated in the 2020 Playbill Pride Spectacular along with co-star Lauren Patten.[21]

She will appear in the upcoming Paramount+ series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds as Nyota Uhura.[22]

On September 24, 2021, Gooding announced that she would not be returning to Jagged Little Pill due to alleged transphobic and abusive treatment of the show's non-binary cast members.[23]

Gooding is bisexual. She also has two cats named Pongo and Sushi.[24]

• Celia Rose Gooding at IMDb 
• Celia Rose Gooding at the Internet Broadway Database