Chenoweth was adopted by Junie Smith Chenoweth and Jerry Morris Chenoweth when she was 5. She attended Broken Arrow High School and graduated majoring in Musical Theatre from Oklahoma City University. She earned a master’s degree in Opera performance from Oklahoma CU in 1992. While studying at OCU, she competed in many beauty pageants and was crowned ‘Miss OCU’ and the second runner up for ‘Miss Oklahoma’ in 1991. She auditioned for the musical Animal Crackers in 1993 while she was at New York and got the role of Arabella Rittenhouse, which marked the start of her career at theatre.

Following Animal Crackers, she continued to appear in many musicals and plays on and off Broadway. She made her Broadway debut in Steel Pier (1997) as Precious Mc- Guire. For this role, she bagged the Theatre Award. The year 1998 saw her appearing in the musical Strike up the Band and in A New Brain. In 1999, she portrayed the role of Sally in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown for which she received the Tony Star Award and Drama Desk Award. After this, she parted time between stage and TV or film roles. In 2001, she released her first solo album Let Yourself Go. She returned back to Broadway in 2003 through Wicked and Good Witch of the North. Chenoweth left Wicked on July 2004.

From December 2006 to March 2007, Chenoweth was involved with Broadway in The Apple Tree. This led to her being nominated at the Drama Desk Award and the Drama League Award. She starred in Promises, Promises (2010) at Broadway. She then appeared in the lead role of The Music Man (2003). She then appeared in final seasons of The West Wing (2004-2006) which nominated her for a Screen Actors Guild Award twice. For Pushing Daisies (2007-2009), she was nominated two years in a row for an Emmy Award. She won an Emmy in 2009 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. From 2009 she appeared in Glee as April Rhodes. She was nominated for 2010 and 2011 Emmy Awards for her performance in Glee. Chenoweth has played supporting roles in five films- The Pink Panther, RV, Running with Scissors, Deck the Halls and Stranger than Fiction; all of them released in 2006. In 2014, she voiced Rio 2 and appeared alongside Jenifer Lopez and Ryan Guzman in the movie The Boy Next Door.

Chenoweth released her second album As I Am in 2004 and her third solo album A Lovely Way to Spend Christmas, hit the market in 2008. She released her fourth album of country pop songs Some Lessons Learned on September 2011. Her memoir book: A Little Bit Wicked: Life, Love and Faith in Stages (2009) was on The New York Times best seller list for two weeks. She dated producer Dana Brunetti, actors Seth Green, Lane Garrison and Marc Kudisch with whom she was engaged from 1998 to 2001.

Chenoweth suffers from Meniere’s disease and has frequent headaches, nausea and other symptoms. She spends her time both in New York and Los Angeles.