Maddie Baillio

After her birth on Feb. 15, 1996, in League City, Texas, Maddie Baillio began her journey to stardom. Throughout her school years, she was involved in choir and theater. After graduating from high school, Baillio enrolled in the Musical Theatre Program at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City, where she appeared in a variety of productions at the York Theatre Company. Baillio was named 2014's Great American Songbook Youth Ambassador, granting her the opportunity to perform with Michael Feinstein at the Kennedy Center, the Grand 1894 Opera House, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Birdland jazz club in 2015. While attending college, she landed starring roles in the school's productions of "Once Upon a Mattress" (Princess Winnifred) and Frank Wildhorn's "Dracula" (Dracula), which prompted her to audition for the role of Tracy Turnblad on NBC's "Hairspray Live!" (2016) when she saw an ad on Facebook announcing an open casting call for the role. The day after she completed her sophomore year in college, she learned that she had been selected for the role from more than a thousand girls who were vying for the spot.