Dawson made her acting debut at the age of 7 in a national tour of Annie.
She was an understudy of the character Mimi, in the national tour of Rent in 2000 and joined the Broadway cast in 2001.
[1] In an interview in The Patriot-News (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) Dawson said that she was given time to become secure in each of the two roles she understudied — Mimi and Joanne — before learning the other.
In 1993, Dawson took a break of two years to give her career more international impact; even though she had a lot of success in France, her records were not really available in other countries.
[7] Dawson married the New York jazz artist and musician Jason Curry on July 7, 2007, in Hamilton, Bermuda.