Monique DeBose is an American singer-songwriter, performer and playwright, based in London since 2025. Her work sits where comedy, music and hard truths meet: audiences laugh a lot, then go very quiet.

Her solo show Adding Up America: Solving the Race Equation made its UK debut at the 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe at Assembly Roxy. Playing around fifteen characters and singing live, she uses the mathematics she studied at UC Berkeley to ask what a mixed-race life — and a nation of many cultures — adds up to. Lyn Gardner in The Stage called it "entertainment and education in equal measure," and The Scotsman named her "a first-rate jazz singer." The show grew from her earlier Mulatto Math, directed by the late Denise Dowse, which won the Producer's Encore Award at the Hollywood Fringe and was invited to close the New York Solo Theater Festival.

A jazz vocalist and improviser trained with Rhiannon and Joey Blake of Bobby McFerrin's Voicestra, Monique has performed in over a dozen countries. Her album The Sovereign One debuted at #2 on the iTunes Jazz chart, and she sang for Quincy Jones at his lifetime achievement award. She sings with the improvisational vocal group the Pascol Project, and in Los Angeles she co-produced and performed in Batteries Included, a women's comedy night at Santa Monica's Crow Comedy Club.

She has spoken and performed at TEDx and at a United Nations SDG Action Zone event, is a member of the Recording Academy, and holds a Master's in Spiritual Psychology.

Raised in Los Angeles by a Black father from the segregated South and an Irish Catholic mother from upstate New York, Monique has spent her career turning questions of identity and belonging into work that is funny, musical and true.

Credits

Theatre

2026 · Adding Up America: Solving the Race Equation · Writer and performer · Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

2017–2025 · Mulatto Math: Summing Up the Race Equation in America · Writer and performer · Hollywood Fringe (Producer's Encore Award), New York Solo Theater Festival (closing invitation), Oregon Fringe, Santa Monica Playhouse · Dir. Denise Dowse

2026 · The Pascol Project · Improvisational singer · Edinburgh Fringe, Gothenburg Fringe, The Cockpit, Theatro Technis, Camden People's Theatre

Comedy

2023–2025 · Batteries Included, women's comedy night · Co-producer and comedian · The Crow Comedy Club, Santa Monica

2025 · Third Act Comedy Show · Comedian

Music

The Sovereign One · debuted at #2, iTunes Jazz chart

Singles: Brown Beauty · Human Condition (feat. Preston Smiles) · Rally Call · Damaged Goods · MORE

Sang for Quincy Jones at his lifetime achievement award

Performed in over a dozen countries

Speaking

TEDx · United Nations SDG Action Zone · Mindvalley

Training

Acting: Millie Slavin · Michael Laskin · Ben Guillory (Robey Theatre Company, LA)

Comedy: Nicole Blaine (The Crow, Santa Monica)

Vocal improvisation: Rhiannon and Joey Blake (Bobby McFerrin's Voicestra)

BA Applied Mathematics, UC Berkeley · MA Spiritual Psychology

Skills

Voice: alto / mezzo-soprano · jazz, R&B and pop · vocal improvisation

Multi-role solo performance · physical character work · stand-up

Representation, bookings and press: monique.debose@gmail.com
Spotlight: spotlight.com/8737-9059-5053
Based in London, UK