Bev Ward

Bev started performing at a very early age. A natural born singer, she fell in love with musical theatre when she was just eleven years old while studying at San Diego’s Junior Theatre. By the time she was eighteen she was touring with Anne Miller and Mickey Rooney in SUGAR BABIES and hasn’t stopped working since. In the fall of 2010, she joins the smash hit musical BILLY ELLIOT playing Dead Mum in the National Tour. She’s appeared with numerous renowned musicians and orchestras across the country and around the world, most notably stopping the show at the Hollywood Bowl, singing and dancing at the request of the Gershwin Estate for an evening of George and Ira’s music. Her association with the Gershwin organization extends to her starring appearance on the West End of London in the lead role of Polly Baker in Crazy For You, a performance she duplicated at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC where, along with Carol Channing and Chita Rivera, she received a prestigious Helen Hayes award nomination and a request to entertain for First Lady Hillary Clinton. One reviewer said of her singing that “She has a set of pipes an organ would envy”. Broadway audiences saw her in the hilarious EPIC PROPORTIONS, and when Hal Prince’s acclaimed revival of SHOWBOAT toured nationally, Beverly played the wisecracking Ellie May Chipley, singing Life Upon The Wicked Stage some five hundred times. Recently Beverly performed for First Lady Laura Bush at Rose Hall at Lincoln Center as part of a benefit honoring Mrs. Bush for her contributions to Covenant House. As a member of Actor’s Equity for over two decades, Bev has starred in SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN, MY ONE AND ONLY, WHITE CHRISTMAS, CHICAGO, ANNIE, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, EVITA, COMPANY, THEY’RE PLAYING OUR SONG, SHE LOVES ME and countless others. In 2005 she turned her sites to composing and in 2009 was accepted as a member of the prestigious BMI Lehman Engle Musical Theatre Workshop – the same workshop that has given birth to such productions as RAGTIME, AVENUE Q and, most recently, the Pulitzer Prize winning NEXT TO NORMAL. She is also a visual artist and has had several showings of her landscapes in and around the Connecticut town where she makes her home with her fabulous husband, Kirby, their three wild boys and a cat named A.J.