| abstract | - Ann Harada (born 3 February 1964 in Honolulu, Hawaii) is a New York-based actress who is best-known on Broadway in Avenue Q in which she originated the role of Christmas Eve, the heavily-accented Japanese therapist. Ann Harada had been involved in Avenue Q since the very first performance of the show at the York Theatre in 2000. She had been recommended to the writers Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx by her friend, the lyricist Amanda Green. In June 2006, she opened the London production of Avenue Q at the Noel Coward Theatre in the West End. She played her last performance on 18 November 2006; the role was taken over by Naoko Mori. Harada left the Broadway company of Avenue Q on 26 February, 2006; the role was taken over by Ann Sanders. About her performance in the Broadway production, Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times: "Counseling the romantically troubled Kate, she temporarily drops her habitually pinched voice to deliver, in the show's wittiest coup de théâtre, a full-throated ballad in the manner of a 1950's musical diva...The more you love someone/The more you want to kill him, Christmas sings in a shivery, rafters-shaking alto. And though you can construe the song as a satire if you choose, there is no doubt that Christmas means every word she sings." Hilton Als, in The New Yorker, in another rave for the show, noted that Avenue Q "has so much to recommend it...But not to single out the remarkable Ann Harada—a funny girl who can sing, act, and let the audience in on the joke all at the same time—would be a mistake." Previously Harada appeared on Broadway in Seussical and M. Butterfly. She has a small part in the Todd Solondz film Happiness (film) as one of the co-workers of Jane Adams (actress)'s character. Harada was raised in Hawaii. She is a graduate of the Punahou School and Brown University.
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