Tony Award winner LaChanze celebrates her birthday December 16.
LaChanze made her Broadway debut in the ensemble of Uptown… It’s Hot! in 1986, launching an award-winning career on the Main Stem. In the following years, she originated seminal roles in musical theatre, including Ti Moune in Once On This Island (earning a Tony nomination), Celie in The Color Purple (winning the Tony Award for Best Actress in a musical), and more. She can currently been seen onstage starring in Alice Childress' Trouble in Mind at the American Airlines Theatre.
In honor of LaChanze, take a look at highlights from her stage career.
LaChanze with the original cast of Once on This Island.
Martha Swope / The New York Public Library
Milton Craig Nealy, LaChanze, and Gerry McIntyre
Martha Swope/©NYPL for the Performing Arts
Sheila Gibbs, Ellis E. Williams, and LaChanze
Jerry Dixon and LaChanze
A Scene from Company
Cheryl Alexander, Jerry Dixon, Jonathan Dokuchitz, LaChanze, Duane Boutte, Darius deHaas, Robert Jason Jackson, and Myiia Watson-Davis in The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin
Joan Marcus
LaChanze and Michael Hayden in Dessa Rose
Joan Marcus
LaChanze in The Color Purple
LaChanze in The Color Purple.
Paul Kolnik
Zipporah G. Gatling , LaChanze, Leon G. Thomas III, and Reneé Elise Goldsberry
LaChanze and Kingsley Leggs in The Color Purple.
Paul Kolnik
LaChanze and Angela Davis in Inked Baby
LaChanze and Che Ayende in Inked Baby
LaChanze and Ashanti
Robert J. Safterstein
Ashanti and LaChanze
Robert J. Safterstein
Tamika Lawrence, Jenn Colella, LaChanze, Idina Menzel in If/Then
Joan Marcus
LaChanze and Anthony Rapp in If/Then
LaChanze
Joan Marcus
LaChanze, Ariana DeBose, and Storm Lever in Summer: The Donna Summer Musical
Joan Marcus
LaChanze, Anastacia McCleskey, and Eisa Davis
Ahron R. Foster
Saycon Sengbloh, Nathaniel Stampley, Eisa Davis, Anastacia McCleskey, and LaChanze in The Secret Life of Bees.
Ahron R. Foster
LaChanze and Elizabeth Teeter
Ahron R. Foster
Campbell Scott and LaChanze in A Christmas Carol
Joan Marcus
LaChanze, Chuck Cooper, and Michael Zegen in Trouble in Mind
Joan Marcus
LaChanze in Trouble in Mind
LaChanze in Trouble in Mind
