Queenie van de Zandt is an Australian actress, singer, comedian, recording artist, writer, and arts educator. She is founder of the Australian Musical Theatre Academy.
Born in Canberra to Dutch immigrants, Van de Zandt attended St Matthew's Primary School and St Francis Xavier High School before graduating in the top 2% of her state at Daramalan College.[citation needed]
Van de Zandt relocated to Sydney in 1992 and began her career performing in musicals and stage plays such as Hair, Cabaret, Les Misérables, Anything Goes, Threepenny Opera, Furious, Barmaids, After January, and The Boy from Oz. [citation needed] She has since worked extensively in musical theatre, plays, and cabaret, as well as appearing on television and in film and releasing several albums.
As of 2016 she was also regularly performing as her comedy character and alter-ego, Jan van de Stool, a Dutch-born musical therapist.[1]
Alongside her career as a performer, Van de Zandt founded the Australian Musical Theatre Academy and runs workshops, masterclasses and courses throughout Australia and internationally in performance and audition technique for musical theatre. She has held lecturing positions at the University of Ballarat Arts Academy, the Victorian College of the Arts and the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA).[citation needed]