Alexandra Billings

In the early 1980s, Billings worked under the stage name Shante at the famed Baton Show Lounge in Chicago, Illinois.[8] Winning a series of beauty contests, she was named Miss Wisconsin, Miss New York, Miss Chicago, Miss Illinois, and Miss Florida. She also served as a judge of the Miss Continental pageant in 2000 and 2001.

Most of Billings' professional work has been in Chicago theaters, most notably The Bailiwick Theater, Light Opera Works, Court Theatre, and Steppenwolf Theatre. She has collaborated on plays with such notable authors as Larry Kramer, Tina Landau, and Jamie Pachino. She has received one Joseph Jefferson Award and five After Dark Awards for her work in Chicago Theatre. Her one-person autobiographical show has toured to Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and off Broadway. She is a former artistic associate of About Face Theatre.

Billings is also a professional singer who performs in theaters and nightclubs throughout the United States. She recorded her second CD The Story Goes On in 2003. She was a recipient of the New York MAC Hanson Award for Cabaret Artist of the Year in 2004.

More recently, Billings has appeared in an autobiographical show, "S/He and Me." [9] In fall 2018, she also appeared in The Nap at Manhattan Theatre Club, and is one of the first openly trans people to be cast in a trans role on Broadway.[10]

In September 2019, it was announced that Billings would play the role of Madame Morrible in the Broadway musical Wicked. She is the first openly transgender person to star in the show.[11]

In the early 2000s, WTTW, the PBS station in Chicago, produced a documentary about Billings' life and career, "Schoolboy to Showgirl: The Alexandra Billings Story." [12]

She has appeared in the 2005 made-for-TV movie Romy and Michelle: A New Beginning. She has also played transgender characters in episodes of Karen Sisco, ER, Eli Stone and Grey's Anatomy.[3]

In 2010, Billings appeared in the film FAUX, in which she commented on gay marriage spurring the economy.[13]

In 2015, Billings appeared on season two, episode six of How to Get Away with Murder as Professor Jill Hartford.[14][15][16]

In 2017, transgender actors and actresses, including Billings (with the help of GLAAD and ScreenCrush), were part of a film to Hollywood written by Jen Richards, asking for more and improved roles for transgender people.[17][18]

In 2018, Billings played Judge Martha Wallace in the second season of Goliath.

Billings may be best known for her role as Davina in the Amazon series Transparent. The character was introduced in an early episode of season one and has appeared in subsequent seasons.

In 2020, Billings appeared in a recurring role as Robin,[19] a transgender supervisor at Wellman Plastics and mentor to Darlene Conner on ABC's The Conners.

She has taught Viewpoints at the Steppenwolf Summer School since 2002 as well as taught at Louis University, The University of Chicago, Illinois University, the Illinois Theatre Convention, Act One Studios, and various classes and workshops around the Chicago area. Currently, she teaches at the Steppenwolf School West in Los Angeles California. Billings is currently a theater professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Before working at USC, she was an assistant professor at California State University, Long Beach.[20] She received her MFA from CSULB, and delivered the commencement speech for CSULB College of the Arts in 2015.[21]