But she has visited the city to sing, and appeared with Il Divo on Broadway in 2013 she has also tried to see shows starring Ms. 11 were two days after she left, and this summer marks her first extended stay in the city since then. As it happened, the terrorist attacks of Sept. She won the Tony for “Aida” at 26 and then left the production to sing full-time. Headley’s work as Nala, the lioness, on Broadway, that he cast her in the title role for the company’s next musical, “Aida.”
“She’s gorgeous, has the most astounding voice, and even as a young girl, right out of college, had moral authority,” said Thomas Schumacher, the president of Disney Theatrical Group. While studying at Northwestern, she was cast as Audra McDonald’s understudy in a pre-Broadway production of “Ragtime,” in Toronto, and while there, Disney came calling, offering her a role in a pre-Broadway production of “The Lion King,” in Minneapolis.
“I want to be the first black Maria, just for one night.”) Her family immigrated to Fort Wayne, Ind., and it was there, at Northrop High School, that she discovered musical theater, performing in “Camelot” and “Man of La Mancha” before landing the title role in “Funny Girl” (yes, she played Fanny Brice). Born and raised initially in Trinidad, she grew up with Bollywood films, as well as “The Sound of Music.” (“Still, there’s this huge part of me that wants to be Maria one day,” she said. Headley has long loved storytelling by song. “I think she finds the physical attraction sometimes with Mister, and the emotional attraction of course with Celie, and if the two of them could just come together in the air and smash into the other, I think she’d be happy,” Ms. Shug’s character is sexually involved with each of them she and Celie have a fleeting onstage kiss that often seems to startle audiences.
She brings a notable religiosity to her conversations with the show’s protagonist, Celie, and a greater intensity to both her anger and her desire for Celie’s abusive husband, Mister. “I’ve worked with many of the great Broadway artists - Patti and Chita and Bernadette and Faith - and I would put Heather in that group,” Mr. “He says, ‘We’re going to play ‘Star Wars’ today because you can’t talk,’” she said.
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She said the older boy has even figured out how to exploit the times when she needs vocal rest. Hudson, glow-in-the-dark stars affixed by the boys, and a schematic of the Millennium Falcon (the start of what is becoming a bit of a “Star Wars” shrine, light sabers and all).
(“I wanted them out of the city in trees and stuff, and then I drove into Times Square and saw naked people and I was like, maybe this is a good idea that they should stay in Harrison.”)Īt the theater, she has converted a second dressing room into a boy-cave, repainted blue, with a television bequeathed by Ms. The couple’s sons, John David, who is 6, and Jordan Chase, who is nearly 2, are staying with Ms. It’s natural to what I do, so I can’t call that work.”Įach role has required juggling - her husband, Brian Musso, an investment adviser who was briefly a wide receiver with the New York Jets, flew back and forth from Chicago to London 44 times to make “The Bodyguard” work - and now he is commuting to New York. “This is natural to me.” And then, dropping her voice to a whisper as she talked about the producers of “The Color Purple,” she added, presumably joking, “Do not tell Scott Sanders. “Truth be told, I decided years ago not to call it a job, because I know people who work - my mother worked, hard,” she said.