Saycon Sengbloh, an award-winning Liberian-American actress, has received critical acclaim on the theater stage thanks to her performances in diverse and challenging roles, yet this young actress is still rising.
Sengbloh delivers sensational performances with her incomparable gift for dramatic storytelling and soaring vocal prowess. She is unparalleled in the breadth and versatility of her craft – both as an actress and a singer. The Atlanta native shimmers regardless of the medium.
Inspired by her family who always instilled in her an appreciation for the arts, she began performing as a teen in plays and musicals at Tri-Cities School for Visual and Performing Arts in East Point, GA and attended Agnes Scott College in Atlanta.I’ve been entertaining people since I was a kid doing plays and musicals, then television, commercials, industrials, you name it!”
Most recently, she starred in the Signature Theater’s revival of Suzan-Lori Parks’ In The Blood as Hester La Negrita, of which the New York Times said she “played with exquisitely clouded radiance”.
She starred alongside Wayne Brady and an ensemble cast in the legendary American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim’s masterwork Merrily We Roll Along, under the direction of Tony Award nominee Michael Arden at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, CA. Prior to Merrily, she starred in award-winning Playwright Danai Guirira’s Eclipsed (both on and off-Broadway), earning a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play, an Obie Awards for Ensemble Performance, and garnering a Tony Award Nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play.
She will soon be seen in a lead role in the upcoming Ernest Dickerson film adaption of Curaçaoan, author Frank Martinus Arion’s internationally acclaimed Dutch-language novel Double Play. Set during the 1970s, the film evokes themes of colonial unrest on the Caribbean island of Curaçao during the tumultuous transition from Dutch colonial rule to autonomous self-governance. In television, she guest-starred on the hit summer HBO limited series, “The Night Of.”
Sengbloh starred as Rita Marley in Marley at Baltimore Center Stage, directed and written by Kwame Kwei-Armah. She co-starred in StaggerLee at Dallas Theater Center; and was the lead in the Kenny Leon-directed Tupac musical Holler If Ya Hear Me on Broadway. She was showcased in the Tony Award nominated, Motown the Musical. She also was featured in the original cast of the musical Fela! on Broadway playing Fela Kuti’s lover. Sengbloh also makes notable appearances on the Grammy nominated soundtracks for Motown the Musical, Fela!, and the Broadway revival of Hair. She was the first woman of African descent to perform the role of Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) as standby in Wicked.
Earlier in her career, Sengbloh toured the U.S. and traveled to Japan as the seductive Latin lead Mimi in Rent. She made her Broadway debut in Elton John and Tim Rice’s Aida, where she played a Disney Nubian princess. After numerous productions with the Freddie Hendrick’s Youth Ensemble of Atlanta, she appeared in Tyler Perry’s first musical I Know I’ve Been Changed.
Sengbloh continues to use her talents as an actress and singer performing at, and encouraging fundraising, for causes and organizations that spur the growth of the West African nation, Liberia. She sits on the board of the Monrovia Football Academy, the first school in Liberia to combine formal education with professional soccer development, and she works and supports many other organizations. You can keep up to date with Saycon at https://www.sayconsengblohcom.
Photo Credit: Lelund Durond Thompson
