Wayne Brady was born in Columbus, Georgia, but moved to Orlando when he was young, where he was raised by his paternal grandmother. At an early age, he expressed an affinity for the arts, creating plays, commercials and songs inspired by 1950s and 60s music and television.
While a student at Dr. Phillips High School, Brady joined ROTC and planned to go into the military. But after receiving major acclaim for a performance in a high school play, he shifted his focus to theater.
After graduating in 1989, he quickly became involved in the Central Florida arts community. In addition to roles at Universal Studios, he also performed in a number of classic stage shows, including A Chorus Line, Jesus Christ Superstar, and A Raisin in the Sun. He was also a regular at Orlando’s SAK Comedy Lab, and in 1992, was named Rookie of the Year for Theatre/Sports Improv.
Brady moved to Las Vegas, where he became known for his impressions of rock ‘n’ roll celebrities like Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard. He also spent some time performing in a musical revue in Hawaii before moving to Los Angeles.
In California, he earned a number of guest-starring roles in television series, including, I’ll Fly Away, In the Heat of the Night and The Home Court. In 1998, Brady became a regular on the improv-based comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway? Three short years later, The Wayne Brady Show was launched on ABC.
In the early 2000s, Brady joined the Broadway revival of Chicago, and made several guest appearances on How I Met Your Mother, 30 Rock, Everybody Hates Chris and a number of other television sitcoms.
In 2017, Brady joined the Chicago cast of Hamilton in the role of Aaron Burr. He will also return for his eighth season as host of Let’s Make a Deal and his fifth season of Whose Line Is It Anyway? Brady has won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program (Whose Line Is It Anyway?); two Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Talk Show Host (The Wayne Brady Show); a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Original Song (“30,000 Reasons to Love Me” for Let’s Make a Deal); and a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album for Children.
