BIOGRAPHY

Originally from Newport in South Wales, Claire-Marie was bitten by the acting bug at young age, making her professional theatrical debut at the age of eleven in the UK national tour of South Pacific. By the age of 18, she had already performed in several professional contracts; sang live as a soloist on national television as both a winner of ITV’s The Champion Children Awards and as the youngest finalist of BBC Wales talent show Just Up Your Street; and gained scholarships to two of the UK’s most prestigious performance arts training establishments, namely Sylvia Young Theatre School and Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts. She left Wales to study full time in London at the latter, gaining a BA (Hons) in Performance. 

Claire’s West End career began straight after graduation in the iconic musical Les Miserables, in which she played the soprano ingenue role of Cosette, the first woman of Asian descent to ever be cast in this role in the UK. She has since returned to the West End with the Bristol Old Vic transfer of The Grinning Man directed by Tony Award winner Tom Morris, and with the Olivier Award-winning and Tony nominated comedy musical Operation Mincemeat in which she starred as Jean Leslie & Others, a role she had previously played off West-End. Claire can be heard on both of these original cast recordings and subsequently went on to originate the character of Jean Leslie & Others in the Broadway transfer of Operation Mincemeat.

Claire also received wide recognition for her portrayal of Gabriella Montez in High School Musical Live On Stage, the theatrical version of the Disney movie phenomenon. She appeared in both in the original London staging of the show, which ran at the 3000+ seater arena Hammersmith Apollo, and on the no. 1 UK and Ireland national tour, to which she performed to sell-out audiences around the country. 

Claire’s career has taken her from legit musical revivals such as Tuptim in the national UK tour of Rodger’s and Hammerstein’s The King and I, to daring contemporary plays such as the verbatim play The Colours at the Soho Theatre, performed using audio prompt instead of scripted material. A big advocate for the promotion of new musical theatre in the UK, she has performed in several premiere outings of new work as well as various workshops for new pieces over the years.

She currently resides in the countryside in Cambridgeshire with her husband and her two dogs Albus and Dea.