With a career that has spanned 31 Broadway seasons, LaChanze consistently brings women of complexity and triumph into the cultural lexicon. She won a Tony Award for her performance as Celie in The Color Purple, originated the role of Ti Moune in Once on This Island (Tony nomination), and upheld her commitment to artistic excellence this past season as Wiletta in Alice Childress’s historic play Trouble In Mind (Tony nomination). Other notable stage performances include roles in Summer: The Donna Summer Musical (Tony nomination), A Christmas Carol, The Secret Life of Bees, If/Then, The Wiz, Ragtime, Uptown … It’s Hot!, and Dreamgirls. On TV and film, she has appeared in Handel’s
Messiah Rocks: A Joyful Noise (Emmy Award), East New York, The Blacklist, Melinda, The Help, HBO’s The Night Of, Law & Order: SVU, The Good Fight, Sex and the City, and Disney’s animated film Hercules, among others. This season, LaChanze serves as producer both on the 20th-anniversary revival of Suzan-Lori Parks’s acclaimed Pulitzer Prize–winning play Topdog/ Underdog and Kimberly Akimbo, a new musical by Jeanine Tesori and David Lindsay-Abaire. She is also president of Black Theatre United, a community of creatives dedicated to awareness, accountability, and advocacy.