Jenna Ushkowitz

Jenna Noelle Ushkowitz (born April 28, 1986) is a South Korean-born American stage and television actress, singer and writer, best known for her performances in Broadway musicals and for her role as Tina Cohen-Chang on Glee. --- Ushkowitz was born in Seoul, South Korea; she was adopted at the age of three months and raised in East Meadow, New York. Ushkowitz was raised Catholic (her surname originates from her adoptive paternal grandfather, who was Jewish). She attended Parkway Elementary School and Holy Trinity Diocesan High School, a Catholic school in Hicksville, Long Island known for its strong theater department. During high school, Ushkowitz appeared in several musicals, including the first-ever high school production of Les Misérables. Her other roles included Penny in Honk!, Inez in The Baker's Wife, Little Red Riding Hood in Into the Woods, and Romaine Patterson in The Laramie Project. She graduated from high school in 2004 and moved on to attend Marymount Manhattan College, where she once again took the role of Little Red Riding Hood in Into the Woods. She graduated from Marymount Manhattan in 2007 with a B.A. in Theatre Arts, with a concentration in Performance and a minor in Musical Theater. Ushkowitz has had a career in show business since the age of three. As a child, she appeared on Sesame Street and other children's television shows. Her first role in a Broadway musical was in the 1996 revival of The King and I. Ushkowitz sang the American National Anthem at a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden when she was thirteen. She understudied the roles of Anna, Martha, Thea and Ilse in the Broadway musical Spring Awakening beginning in 2008. In 2009, she landed the role of Tina Cohen-Chang on Fox's musical high school show Glee. In casting Glee, series creator Ryan Murphy sought out actors who could identify with the rush of starring in theatrical roles. Instead of using traditional network casting calls, he spent three months on Broadway, where he found Ushkowitz. The Glee casting associate in New York had previously cast Ushkowitz in Spring Awakening. Ushkowitz was initially given little information about Tina's back story, and believed that her stutter was real. She was pleased when the truth was revealed, however, explaining: "It would have been fun to keep it because that just gives her one more quirk, but this opens up a whole new set of doors for Tina."