Ann Harada (born February 3, 1964) is an American actress and singer who was first known for the musical Avenue Q, in which she originated the role of Christmas Eve, the heavily accented Japanese therapist. Early life Harada was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. She was raised in Hawaii and attended the Punahou School and Brown University. She was active in theatre from high school. After college, she moved to New York City and, anticipating working in production, worked with producer Suzanne Schwartz. Finding stage production not completely satisfactory, she performed with the New York City Gay Men's Chorus as a vocalist, performed cabaret, and appeared in the Broadway production of M. Butterfly. Career Harada earned her Equity Card in 1987 when she was cast in Maury Yeston and Larry Gelbart's 1,2,3,4,5 at Manhattan Theatre Club. She is a member of the Vineyard Theatre's Community of Artists and appeared in four original musicals there including Hit the Lights!. In 1998, Harada starred in the National Asian American Theatre Company's highly praised All-Asian production of William Finn's Falsettoland. Peter Marks of The New York Times described her rendition of "Holding to the Ground" as a "full-throttle success". Also in 1998, Harada had a small part in the Todd Solondz film Happiness as one of the co-workers of Jane Adams's character. Harada was in the original Broadway company of Seussical in 2000. She had also been in its first workshop and all of the pre-Broadway iterations of that show. About her experience she said "It was such a roller-coaster ride — everything that could go wrong went wrong. You'd just show up to work every day and go, 'I wonder what's going to happen today.'...There was way too much drama for one show to take, and it didn't deserve that kind of drama because it's really a great little show. . . . I loved it, and I still love it. . . I just keep thinking about what it was like doing that first workshop and us all just being so blown away by it and being so excited." Avenue Q Harada was involved in Avenue Q since the first performance of the show at the York Theatre in 2000.<ref name="playbill">Gans, Andrew. [http://www.playbill.com/celebritybuzz/article/89145.html DIVA TALK: Catching Up with Avenue Q'''s Ann Harada; Family Night at the Cabaret Convention and Showstoppers!] , Playbill, 22 October 2004</ref> Lyricist Amanda Green had recommended Harada to