My Casting Choices (BONUS: Crew Choices) - FROZEN (Broadway Musical)

Laura Osnes was born on 19 November 1985 in Burnsville, Minnesota, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for One Royal Holiday (2020), Raise a Glass to Love (2021) and BANDSTAND: The Broadway Musical on Screen (2018). She has been married to Nathan Johnson since 11 May 2007.

Idina Menzel was born on May 30, 1971 in New York City, New York as Idina Kim Mentzel. She's an American actress, singer & songwriter. She's best known as Maureen in Rent, Elphaba in Wicked & the voice of Elsa in Frozen (2013). Her mother Helene Goldberg was a therapist & her father Stuart Mentzel was a pajama salesman. Her grandparents emigrated to the U.S. from Russia. She grew up in New Jersey & on Long Island. At 15, she started to work as a wedding & bar mitzvah singer. She attended Syosset High School & graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts w/ a degree in drama in 1992.

In 1996, she debuted in theater, originating the role of Maureen in Rent, which went from Off-Broadway to Broadway. This role also got Menzel her 1st Tony nomination. In 1998, she released her 1st album Still I Can't Be Still. She made her movie debut in 2001 when she played a minor role in Kissing Jessica Stein (2001). In 2003, she became 1 of the most popular Broadway performers when she originated the role of Elphaba in Wicked. This role brought her not only huge popularity & acclaim, but also a Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical.

In 2005, she appeared in the Off-Broadway musical See What I Wanna See, earning Drama Desk Award & Drama League Award nominations. The same year, she reprised the role of Maureen in the movie adaptation of Rent (2005). In 2007, she appeared in Enchanted (2007). In 2013, she received another Tony nomination for her performance in If/Then. She voiced Elsa for the 1st time in Frozen (2013), a role she often reprises for sequels & tie-ins. In addition to theater, movie & TV appearances, she regularly releases new music & goes on tour.

Jonathan Drew Groff is an American actor and singer. Known for his performances on screen, stage and television, Groff is the recipient of such accolades as a Grammy Award and a Tony Award and has been nominated for three Tony Awards, two Drama League Awards, three Grammy Awards, a Drama Desk Award and a Primetime Emmy Award.

Josh Gad is an American actor and singer who is well-known for voicing Olaf the Snowman in Disney's Frozen franchise. He was also in Beauty and the Beast as LeFou, Ghostbusters: Afterlife as Muncher, The Wedding Ringer, Ice Age: Continental Drift, Pixels, The Internship, The Rocker, 21 and The Angry Birds Movie 1 and 2.

The middle child between two sisters, Zachary Levi was born as Zachary Levi Pugh on September 29, 1980 in Lake Charles, Louisiana, to Susan (Hoctor) and Darrell Alton Pugh. He uses his middle name as his stage surname because his birth name, "Pugh", which is of Welsh origin, sounds too much like "Pew." His other ancestry includes Irish, English, French, German, Scottish, and Swiss. He grew up all over the country before his family put down roots in Ventura County, California. At the early age of six, Zachary began acting, singing and dancing in school and local theater productions.

After graduating from Buena High School he headed to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of acting. Zachary began acting in theater, performing roles in such regional productions like Grease, The Outsiders, Oliver, The Wizard of Oz, and Big River. It was his portrayal of Jesus in Ojai's Godspell that brought him to the attention of Hollywood.

He had a supporting role in the television movie Big Shot: Confessions of a Campus Bookie (2002) with David Krumholtz, Tory Kittles, Jennifer Morrison, and Nicholas Turturro. He then began acting as Kipp Steadman in the TV series Less Than Perfect (2002) with Sara Rue, Andrea Parker, Eric Roberts, Andy Dick, and Sherri Shepherd.

He was seen in the television movie See Jane Date (2003) on the WB with Charisma Carpenter, Holly Marie Combs, Linda Dano, and Rachelle Lefevre. In his spare time, Zachary enjoys skateboarding, snowboarding, skydiving, and participating in various other sports. After living in Los Angeles for the better part of a decade, he recently moved to Austin, Texas.

In 2019 he starred in the action-comedy film Shazam! (2019), playing the title superhero; a magic-created older version of teenager Billy Batson played by Asher Angel. The film and his comic-heroic performance received positive notices.

Joel Grey's father, Mickey Katz, created "Borscht Capades" in the early 1950s. Mickey Katz was a musician -- a clarinetist and a saxophone player -- in bands around the east. Mickey was performing, playing in a band in Cleveland, Ohio, which is where Joel Grey was born. Musician and bandleader Spike Jones needed a clarinet player who could do bits, funny things. Mickey went on the road with Jones' band for about a year, the Katz family ending up, as the band all went to California.

One day his father Mickey was doing a recording session at the Sunset Boulevard RCA-Victor recording studio in Hollywood, and during a break, Mickey always wrote parodies to pop songs for fun and had just written this parody -- he was singing it to one of the other Jewish musicians. Unbeknownst to him the microphone was open in the control room and this group of non-Jewish, white-bread heads of RCA-Victor were sitting there and he's singing a Yiddish song. They didn't know what he was singing but they were laughing and laughing and they decided to record it. The recording became an enormous hit. The records were so successful Mickey put together a variety show that sold out every week in Los Angeles at the Wilshire Ebell Theater. Joel knew, even at 9, that he was going to become an actor. When his father had this variety show, Joel said, "How can I be in it?" And his father said, "Well, what do you want to do?" Joel replied, "I don't know how to sing and I don't dance, but I'll run around and I'll move."

So Joel's aunt dropped him a song that was a big record in New York, a Yiddish song -- it was a million words and very fast and it was very popular with the audience -- and Joel learned it by rote. Joel had no idea what he was saying or singing and the next thing he knew, he was boxed in to being a song-and-dance man as opposed to an actor. "Romania, Romania." The song was like a Danny Kaye spectacular, fast, patter song that left a lot of room to dance and sing and mug and do all the things like his hero at the time -- Jerry Lewis. Maybe two years, Eddie Cantor saw Joel in Florida and put him on his "Colgate Comedy Hour' television show, and that was the end of the "Borscht Capades" for Joel, and the beginning of Joel's long tenure in night clubs all over the country.

Richard Piper is known for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017), Correlli (1995) and Wentworth (2013).

Maia Wilson was born on 30 January 1975 in Connecticut, USA. She is an actress, known for Frozen (2013), Top Five (2014) and Frozen II (2019).

By August of 1994, Craig Ferguson was established as one of Great Britain's leading comedians - he had just had huge success at the Edinburgh Festival. In January 1995 he moved to Los Angeles where he now works as an actor-writer-director-producer-creator.

Jennifer Lee was born on 22 October 1971 in Barrington, Rhode Island, USA. She is a producer and writer, known for Frozen (2013), Frozen II (2019) and Wreck-It Ralph (2012). She has been married to Alfred Molina since August 2021. She was previously married to Robert Joseph Monn.

Robert Lopez is the Tony®-, Grammy®-, Emmy®- and Oscar®- winning co-creator of the worldwide smash-hit Broadway musicals "Avenue Q" and "The Book of Mormon." Together with his wife and collaborator Kristen Anderson-Lopez, he co-wrote songs for the feature films "Winnie the Pooh (2011)" and "Frozen (2013)", as well as "Finding Nemo: The Musical," a beloved fixture in Disney's Animal Kingdom since 2006.

He shared two Emmy® Awards for his music for Nickelodeon's Wonder Pets! (2006) and an Emmy® nomination for his work on the musical episode of Scrubs (2001). His work has been featured on South Park (1997), The Simpsons (1989) and Phineas and Ferb (2007)," as well as 3rd & Bird (2008) and Johnny and the Sprites (2005)." He has won Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League, Lucille Lortel, Frederick Loewe and Edward Kleban awards.

Lopez, a Yale College graduate, lives in Brooklyn with his wife and their two daughters.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez was born on 21 March 1972 in New York City, New York, USA. She is a writer and composer, known for Agatha All Along (2024), WandaVision (2021) and Frozen II (2019). She has been married to Robert Lopez since 12 October 2003. They have two children.

Scott Faris is known for Here (2020) and Bette Midler: The Showgirl Must Go On (2010).