Eagan Actress Sets Her Sights on Tony Award

Follow Eagan Patch on Twitter | Like us on Facebook | Sign up for our daily newsletter

On June 10, Broadway star and Tony nominee Laura Osnes will find out if she’s won the 2012 award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical.

But long before Osnes established herself as a rising star on the Broadway stage, she was a little girl performing under the lights of the .

Osnes was born in Burnsville, raised in Eagan and made her theatrical debut at Apple Valley’s Giant Step Theatre when she was in the second grade.

“Everybody was so supportive,” said Osnes, in reference her Minnesota family and friends’ reaction to her decision to pursue performing professionally. “It would have been impossible to do it had I not had their support.”

Osnes showed an early interest in performing. She was involved in the Eagan Community Theatre as a child and teen, and worked at the Children’s Theatre Company, Guthrie Theater and Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in her middle school and high school years.

An graduate, Osnes also participated in approximately 15 EHS productions, where she worked closely with former Eagan speech and acting teacher, Denny Swanson.

“She is the total package in every way,” said Swanson, who is still in contact with Osnes, and has seen her perform on Broadway. “You get very, very few of her caliber.”

After graduating from high school in 2004, Osnes attended the University of Wisconson at Stevens Point, before she was offered an apprenticeship at the Children’s Theatre Company in 2005. The following year, she landed the role of Sandy in Grease at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatre. Osnes followed her run at the Chanhassen by auditioning for the reality-TV Broadway audition program Grease: You’re the One that I Want!

Osnes was cast on the show and won the role of Sandy in March 2007.

“It is very surreal,” said Osnes, regarding reality television. “It was three months of living in this reality TV world.”

The show was her ticket to the Broadway stage, and since winning, Osnes has played leading roles in Broadway productions of South Pacific, Anything Goes and, most recently, Bonnie & Clyde.

Her performance as Bonnie earned her the 2012 Tony nomination.

“It’s such a thrill,” said Osnes. “It was so unexpected.”