Jillann Gabrielle is a highly skilled cabaret and musical theatre singer, actress, comedienne, host/MC, creator/writer/producer, and a vocal/acting/voice over instructor. She is actively creating and producing projects for the screen and stage as vehicles for her talents as well as to bring her unique kinds of stories to the ever thirsty entertainment business. She currently lives in Chicago with her long-suffering husband and agent/manager, Phil Barrile. She travels to Los Angeles, New York and elsewhere as her projects require.

Jillann is currently investigating, creating, and developing a number of projects for Broadway, TV, and film. She has created and developed a sitcom set in a Chicago cabaret and scheduled to come to the front burner during the next calendar year in L.A. Jill conceived and has collaborated on a new Broadway bound musical play with Erv Raible (head writer). Wallis and Edward, the love story of the 20th Century? (www.wallisandedward.com) about the scandalous affair between the twice divorced American socialite, Wallis Warfield Simpson, and the world’s most eligible bachelor, King Edward VIII. This musical will be performed in a future season of Paradise Playhouse. She has recently finished creating and collaborating on Stringendo a screenplay about Johann Sebastian Bach. Academy Award winning director/writer Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso for which he received an Academy Award and The Legend of 1900) has expressed interest in the project. It is currently being rewritten for him. She is currently writing lyrics, music, and book for a one woman musical on the iconic, hat-crazed Hollywood gossip columnist, Hedda Hopper. Hedda! Queen of Hollywood is slated to be produced in the winter or early spring of 2013 at the Open Door Theatre space.
Jill recently spent a year and a half in Los Angeles. While there she created and produced a high-end open mic in Beverly Hills, L.A. She had a cast of L.A. regulars L.A. and “stars” who appeared from time to time. She also produced and directed an AIDS Benefit for “Hollywood Remembers.” Her co-host was Alan Rachins (LA Law and Dharma and Greg) and her performers included Ray Jessel (Carol Burnett and Dean Martin Shows). In L.A. she also appeared recently in a critically acclaimed new play, Ojala!, at Casa 0101 for which she received a Los Angeles theatre award for her performance. The play is currently in negotiations for being turned into a film.

Jill has developed producing, writing, and marketing talents to create vehicles to showcase her talents as well as the talents of her students and others. Alumni from her Paradise Productions theatrical ensemble (earlier incarnation of Paradise Playhouse) and vocal studio have gone on to work with such luminaries as Barbra Streisand and John Malkovich; on Broadway in Carousel and Hair; national tours that include A Chorus Line, Les Miserables, Ragtime; Oleander in London’s West End, and Show Boat for PBS’s musical specials; television’s Drew Carey Show, Early Edition and Even Stevens for the Disney Channel; the feature film The Babe; CBS’s Rock
Star INXS; and numerous appearances in Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf, and all the major theatre companies in the Chicago area.

Jill’s professional life has consisted of teaching voice, acting, and voice-over www.jillanngabrielle.com performing her one woman shows for corporate, private, and senior events in the Chicago and New York and Los Angeles metropolitan areas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFn19sZVmkI; performing her unique dinner show, The Uptown/Downtown Diva, in which she is glamorous and funny as she showcases her dual talents as an operatic and Broadway singer and shares the stage with some of her “star” students and other professionals; producing, hosting, and marketing an open mic for opera singers, SpaghettiArias, at the historic Italian Village Restaurant in Chicago’s loop; performing her one-woman cabaret show Starstrucker! in Manhattan and Chicago; producing and hosting dinner showcases for her vocal students; Jillann currently has a studio at her town home near Oak Park, IL, and has been a leading Chicago vocal instructor since 1981.
Jill has recently appeared on the TV screen in Pregnant and Injured, Unusual Suspects, in Blue Movies (short film spoofing Forrest Gump), Hellbent for Hollywood web series, and on Chicago’s CBS-TV Morning Show, CBS-TV News with Steve Baskerville: Voice Lesson; and NBC-TV reality show hit Starting Over (stage presence instruction two episodes).

Jill created Paradise Productions (theatrical division) in 1993, and since has produced and starred in critically acclaimed productions of Into the Woods, You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown, Jerry’s Girls, The Wizard of Oz, Rodgers’ & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, The Secret Garden, Steve Allen’s Alice In Wonderland, Two by Two, and Side by Side by Sondheim. Altogether she has appeared in 35 leading roles in musicals and comedy/drama including: Evita, The Robber Bridegroom and Born Yesterday.

Jillann has appeared with: Barbara Rush in The Unsinkable Molly Brown; Peter Palmer, star of Lil’ Abner on Broadway and film; Alan Rachins (LA Law and Dharma and Greg); Ray Jessel (Carol Burnett and Dean Martin Shows); Faith Prince, Broadway/film star; Tovah Feldshuh, Broadway/film star; Jason Graae, Broadway/cabaret/TV star; Sharon McNight, cabaret/Broadway star; Sally Mayes, Broadway/cabaret/TV star; Carol Hall, composer lyricist for Best Little Whorehouse in Texas; Julie Wilson, Legendary cabaret/Broadway star; Laurel Masse, cabaret/former Manhattan Transfer star; Shelly Markham (Naked Boys Singing), composer/arranger/pianist; Pamela Myers, Broadway star; legendary Chicago DJ Wally Phillips; Metropolitan Opera star Edyta Kulczak. James Mack, lauded writer, conductor, and arranger for Ramsey Lewis and Nancy Wilson, produced Jill’s first demo and utilized her talents for a Golden Book video series.

Jillann has always been musical and theatrical. Her grandparents were opera singers, her mother a visual artist and pianist, and her father was a sought after ballroom dancer. Jillann was raised with classical music and musical theater playing constantly, while old movies ran on television. A career in show business was inevitable. Her first on stage experience was at age 4.  Jillann has a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance, cum laude, from Dominican University; 3 years toward her Masters of Music in Voice from Indiana University; Meisner technique at The Actor’s Center; on-camera technique with casting director, Janet Louer; voice-over work with James Andelin; improvisational acting at Chicago’s famed Player’s Workshop of Second City; Kodaly music education techniques at Steckman Studio of Music. She has studied voice with Carol LoVerde, Dan Balestrero, Martha Lipton, and Eric V. Howe and coached with Stuart Leitch.