Movies

LaChanze Has an Expansive Vision for Broadway’s Future

BBG News

During the 2023 season, LaChanze marketed the play “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding” in an unconventional way compared to typical Broadway producers. Rather than depending on conventional media for theatrical promotion like the New York Times and Playbill.com, she chose to connect with her target audience personally. She hopped into a car with a pile of flyers and visited Black hair salons in Harlem one by one, extending invitations to the owners and their clients to watch the show at a reduced price using a unique discount code. Later, she extended dinner invitations to 25 salon owners at the renowned Harlem eatery Melba’s, where she engaged them in discussions about the play. “I knew it would be tough for the women who own these salons to even realize they were invited to this space and feel included,” she explained. “I told them, ‘We’re telling your stories on Broadway.’

The production received five Tony nominations, but for LaChanze (at 63 years old), this was merely the start of her aspirations. She aims to make her projects a gateway for a fresh kind of Broadway audience. As she explains, “Many women who attended our show walked down the street and expressed a desire to see more shows like ours.

Following her initial success (and first Tony nomination) playing Ti Moune in Once on This Island in 1990, LaChanze garnered a Tony for her portrayal of Celie in The Color Purple, and received another acting nomination in 2021 for her performance in Trouble in Mind. However, she’s now aiming for an even greater influence. In 2022, she stepped into the role of Broadway producer for the first time with Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog and the hit musical Kimberly Akimbo. These productions collectively won six Tonys, including Best Revival of a Play and Best Musical. That year, she also assumed the presidency of Black Theatre United, an organization she co-founded alongside notable Black theater figures like Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and Billy Porter, advocating for racial equality in commercial theater following George Floyd’s death.

In 2021, Black Theatre United presented “A New Deal for Broadway,” prompting several prominent theater companies to pledge to increase diversity within their creative departments. In response to Black Theatre United’s advocacy, the Cort Theatre was renamed the James Earl Jones Theatre, and the Brooks Atkinson Theatre became known as the Lena Horne Theatre in 2022. Additionally, this organization established a marketing internship program aimed at educating young Black creatives about the commercial theater industry. Later this year, they will introduce a design expo and a musical-theater scholarship. According to LaChanze, their objective is to develop a talent pipeline to foster diversity on Broadway. “We frequently hear: We wish to offer employment, but we can’t seem to find them, or we don’t know where the emerging lighting designers are,” she says. “And we reply: Let us guide you to where they are.”

LaChanze believes that promoting greater racial equity in the arts is advantageous for everyone involved. In fact, due to her initiatives, the 2022-2023 Broadway season boasted a record-breaking diverse audience, with approximately 29% of attendees identifying as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color), as reported by the Broadway League. “One issue that concerns me about our industry, particularly commercial theater,” she explains, “is the tendency to categorize shows as ‘the Black show,’ ‘the female show,’ or ‘the gay show,’ and so forth. When we move beyond these narrow definitions, we’ll begin to foster a more inclusive environment overall.

She clearly remembers instructing the marketing team at Jaja’s African Hair Braiding that they should not overemphasize Black women in their promotional materials. “It is clear enough that this production features Black women. We don’t need to specifically mention it. Instead, we can simply say, ‘Come witness this fantastic play.’

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2025-02-06 16:07

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