Helena was born in Southampton and has been performing since a very young age. At 18 she gained a scholarship for the three-year Musical Theatre course at the Guildford School of Acting, from where she graduated in 2004; her favourite roles whilst training include Little Mary in Little Mary Sunshine, Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing, Hattie in The Dancing Years and Maria in Pericles. She also created the role of Echo in the new musical Jason and the Argonauts.
Professional credits include Grab Me a Gondola at the Theatre Museum, London, Frasquita in Howard Goodall’s 20th Century Musical Greats for Channel 4 and Spirit of Fire at the Royal Albert Hall.
Helena spent several months as principal singer at Tokyo Disneyworld in Japan, played Jill in Jack and the Beanstalk at the Wilde Theatre, Bracknell and was in the European tour of Beatlemania.
Helena was recently seen in the BBC’s How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria? and was thrilled to reach the final. Her first appearance after this was in The Voice of Musical Theatre for the Cardiff International Music Festival, in which she again reached the final.
Helena then played the title role in Gypsy alongside Julia McKenzie, sang in the David Heneker Centenary concert and in the S’Wonderful concert again for the< Cardiff International Festival. After Cardiff Helena played Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre and went on to sing in Another Evening with Tim Rice for the Holders Season in Barbados. She performed as a soloist in The Night of a Thousand Voices at the Royal Albert Hall celebrating the music of Kander and Ebb with an international cast that included Joel Grey. Before joining the cast of South Pacific, Helena performed in several Andrew Lloyd Webber concerts in Toronto and was a soloist on Friday Night is Music Night on BBC Radio 2. For more information visit www.helenablackman.com
