Kuhn was born in New York City and grew up in Bethesda, MD. She attended Georgetown Day School in Washington, D.C. She entered Oberlin College in 1976. Although she was very interested in singing and theater, she began Oberlin in the College, not the Conservatory. After taking voice lessons with Frank Farina, a student who is now a famous opera singer[1], during her freshman year, Kuhn decided to transfer into the conservatory. She transferred her sophomore year. Unlike other Oberlin Conservatory vocal performance majors, Kuhn was never interested in singing classical music, preferring musical theater and other types of music instead. She trained as a classical soprano and graduated in 1981. After college Kuhn moved to Boston, where she waited tables and studied acting. After doing summer stock in New England, Kuhn moved to New York, where she called up everyone she knew in the business to begin a career in the New York theater business.

Her Broadway on-stage debut was in a multiple award winning The Mystery of Edwin Drood, a Rupert Holmes musical based on the unfinished Charles Dickens novel, in 1985. Her next appearance was in the ill-fated Rags, which closed after just four performances but managed to attract a lot of major nominations. Her next role of Cosette in the 1987 multiple award winning Broadway production of Les Misérables brought her the first Tony Award nomination, as Best Featured Actress in a Musical, Drama Desk Award nomination as Outstanding Featured Actress in A Musical and generous praise from the reviewers.

The following year, Kuhn took on a transfer from London's West End, playing one of the main roles (Florence Vassy) in the Trevor Nunn-directed Chess, with music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus (formerly of ABBA) and lyrics by Tim Rice. Despite the show's success in London, Trevor Nunn decided to rework it for Broadway from a pop/rock opera as staged in London into a more conventional musical theater piece with a new book by Richard Nelson. As a result, the new show was greeted with mostly negative reviews and closed after less than a two-month run. Kuhn's performance in the musical, however, received a unanimous praise from the critics. "Her beautiful pop-soprano voice is the show's chief pleasure. She acts the sympathetic, gutsy role with spirit and heart", wrote Variety. The Village Voice noted that "she pours a river of feeling and lush vocal tone into...the role", the Washington Post described her as having "a firm, clarion voice, an unassuming simplicity of manner, the unswerving emotional honesty", the New York Daily News found her "enormously appealing" and the New York Post called her "terrific, full-voiced, intensely focused ... definitely worth seeing". She also garnered her second Tony Award nomination, this time as Best Actress in a Musical, and Drama Desk Award nomination as an Outstanding Actress in a Musical. In addition, The Original Broadway Cast recording of the musical was nominated for Grammy Award.

She reprised her role of Florence Vassy later in 1988 in a Carnegie Hall concert performance with the rest of the Broadway cast, and in 1989 concert version in Skelleftea, Sweden, during a chess World Cup final tournament, where she joined forces with Tommy Korberg and Murray Head, two principal actors from 1986 West End production of the musical.

Kuhn's next major Broadway project Two Shakespearean Actors (1992), despite an impressive cast that included Brian Bedford, Frances Conroy, Hope Davis, Victor Garber, Laura Innes and Eric Stoltz, was again commercially unsuccessful, closing after 62 performances.

In 1993, she took part in a Roundabout Theater Company's revival of She Loves Me, based on the film The Shop Around the Corner, portraying Amalia Balash, a young Budapest shopgirl who is unaware that the co-worker she despises is the young man with whom she's been sharing an anonymous correspondence. This impressive performance was rewarded with a third Tony Award nomination for the actress.

Kuhn's most recent Broadway appearances were in concerts. King David was a 1997 Disney project with a book and lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Alan Menken and directed by Mike Ockrent, but despite its impressive credits it never evolved into a full-scale production. Funny Girl (2002), with an all-star cast - including a series of different actresses taking on the role of Fanny Brice - was the much-anticipated second annual benefit for The Actors' Fund, with Kuhn singing the plaintive "Who Are You Now?"

Kuhn's off-Broadway and regional theater credits include Eli's Comin' (for which she won an Obie Award), the title role in The Ballad of Little Jo at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, As Thousands Cheer at the Drama Dept, Strike up the Band, The Glass Menagerie, The Highest Yellow at the Signature Theater Company in Virginia, and Martin Guerre.

She appeared as Betty Schaefer in the pre-Broadway Los Angeles run of Sunset Boulevard with Glenn Close, and got a 1989 Laurence Olivier Award nomination as Best Actress In a Musical for her performance in West End production of Metropolis.

She sang the title role in Disney's animated film, Pocahontas, as well as in the video-released sequel, Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World. She also sang as Pocahontas in If You Can Dream, a Disney Princess song. In 1995, Kuhn reprised her role as Cosette for the 10th anniversary production of Les Misérables at the Royal Albert Hall. She also briefly appeared in the movie Long Time Since and supplied the vocals for the movie's haunting soundtrack which includes a rendition of Auld Lang Syne.

Kuhn's television credits include Law < Order and Law < Order: SVU, All My Children and two PBS productions - My Favorite Broadway: The Leading Ladies and In Performance At The White House. Kuhn has performed in concert at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Avery Fisher Hall in Manhattan, and at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

In addition to being a cast member on various original cast recordings, she released 2 solo albums. The first, Just In Time: Judy Kuhn Sings Jule Styne. Kuhn released her second solo CD, Serious Playground - The Songs of Laura Nyro, through Ghostlight Records (an imprint of Sh-K-Boom Records). That concert followed Judy’s Obie Award-winning role in the Off Broadway production of Eli’s Comin’ at the Vineyard Theatre, which inspired her passion for Nyro’s music.

On October 23, 2007, Kuhn returned to the Broadway Production of 'Les Misérables' after 20 years, but this time assuming the role of Fantine. She succeeded Lea Salonga and remained with the show until the revival ended on January 6, 2008.[2]

Kuhn also teaches a song interpretation class at Michael Howard Studios in New York City.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1985 Original Broadway Cast) - Grammy Award nomination
Les Misérables (1987 Original Broadway Cast) - Grammy Award
Chess (1988 Original Broadway Cast) - Grammy Award nomination
Metropolis (1989 Original London Cast)
Rags (1991 Cast Recording)
Unsung Sondheim (1993)
She Loves Me (1993 Broadway Revival)
Sunset Boulevard (1994 Los Angeles Cast)
Pocahontas (1995 Soundtrack)
Just in Time: Judy Kuhn Sings Jule Styne (1995)
Les Miserables - The Dream Cast in Concert (1995)
Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World (1998 Soundtrack)
As Thousands Cheer (1998 New York Revival Cast)
Mulan 2 (2004)
Disney's Princess Ultimate Collection as Pocahontas (2004)
Serious Playground – The Songs of Laura Nyro (2007)
Enchanted (2007)

Album reviews

Most searched Judy Kuhn lyrics 1)  Just Around The River Bend