LaChanze

Born in St. Augustine, Florida, to Walter and Rosalie Sapp, her stage name "LaChanze" (Creole: the charmed one) is taken from her grandmother. After moving to Connecticut, her childhood love of singing and dancing caused her mother to enroll her in the Bowen Peters Cultural Arts Center in New Haven. There she discovered her love for performing. At Warren Harding High School in Bridgeport, LaChanze made her debut as Lola in the school production of Damn Yankees.

After high school, LaChanze studied drama at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland, before transferring to the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where she studied Theater and Dance.

Her first summer job was as a tap dancer in the ensemble of Uptown... It's Hot! at the Tropicana Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The show opened on Broadway in January 1986, where LaChanze began her professional career in the theater.[4]

LaChanze played the role of Ti Moune in the Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty musical Once on This Island in 1990 and received nominations for the Tony Award as Best Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical and Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical.[5][6] In December 1998, she joined the cast of the Ahrens and Flaherty and Terrence McNally Broadway musical Ragtime, replacing Audra McDonald in the role of "Sarah."[7] She played the role of Viveca in the Playwrights Horizons Off-Broadway production of the musical The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, which opened in June 2000.[8] She received a Drama Desk nomination, Actress (Musical), for her performance.[9] LaChanze participated in an Actors Fund of America benefit concert of Funny Girl, with many performers portraying the character of Fanny Brice, in September 2002.[10]

LaChanze performing in 2006

In 2005 she played a runaway slave in the Ahrens and Flaherty musical Dessa Rose. The musical opened Off-Broadway at the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre at Lincoln Center in March 2005.[11] LaChanze received an Obie Award for Performance for Dessa Rose.[12][13] LaChanze appeared as Celie Harris Johnson in the Broadway musical The Color Purple, from its opening in 2005 to November 2006.[14][15] She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical for this performance.

In September 2008 she participated in the Boston Pops concert, Handel's Messiah Rocks at Emerson College. The performance was filmed by Public Broadcasting Service.[16] She was in the Off-Broadway production of Inked Baby, written by Christina Anderson, which opened in March 2009 at Playwrights Horizons Peter Jay Sharp Theater.[17] In June and July 2009, she played the role of Glinda in the City Center Encores! staged Summer Stars concert production of The Wiz.[18]

She published her first picture book, Little Diva, in 2010. She was in the Broadway production of If/Then in 2014, starring as Kate. In 2018, she was in Summer: The Donna Summer Musical on Broadway, playing Diva Donna/Mary Gaines. In 2019 she appeared in A Christmas Carol on Broadway, starring as the Ghost of Christmas Present.

In January 2022, Lachanze took a star turn on Broadway in Trouble in Mind, written by Alice Childress in 1955. Lachanze earned a Tony nomination for her performance as Wiletta Mayer.[19]

In 2022, Lachanze began her career as a Broadway producer. She produced Topdog/Underdog with David Stone, Rashad V. Chambers, Marc Platt, Debra Martin Chase, and the Shubert Organization. [20] She is also producing Kimberly Akimbo on Broadway with David Stone, Aaron Glick, Patrick Catullo and James L. Nederlander.[21] She was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Musical and the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play as a producer for Kimberly Akimbo and Topdog/Underdog on May 2, 2023. She was announced as a winner for both shows during the Tony Awards telecast on June 11, 2023.[22]

While LaChanze was eight months pregnant with her second child, Zaya, her husband, securities trader Calvin Gooding, was killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks. He was working at Cantor Fitzgerald in Tower One of the World Trade Center.[23]

On September 6, 2002, she sang the National Anthem at a joint meeting of Congress in Federal Hall National Memorial, the first meeting of Congress in New York since 1790.[24][25] She sang "Amazing Grace" at the dedication of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum on May 15, 2014, dedicating her performance to her late husband.

LaChanze remarried in 2005 to Derek Fordjour, and divorced him in 2014. The divorce was finalized on March 27, 2014, in Westchester County.[26]

In 2019, LaChanze and the elder of her two daughters, Celia Rose Gooding, simultaneously appeared on Broadway, with LaChanze starring in A Christmas Carol and Gooding starring in Jagged Little Pill.[27] The two repeated the rare event of mother and daughter starring in Broadway shows, following Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher in 1983.[28][29][30]

Sources: The New York Times;[31] TCM[32]

• Once On This Island (Original Broadway Cast Recording), 1990
• Disney's Princess Favorites, featured artist, 2002
• Dessa Rose (off-Broadway Cast Recording), 2005
• The Color Purple (Original Broadway Cast Recording), 2006
• Disney Collection 1, featured artist, 2006
• The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin (Studio Cast Recording), 2007
• Handel's Messiah Rocks: A Joyful Noise, featured artist, 2009
• Nice Fighting You: A 30th Anniversary Celebration Live at 54 Below, featured on four songs, 2014
• If/Then (Original Broadway Cast Recording), 2014
• Summer: The Donna Summer Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording), 2018

• September 6, 2002 - Federal Hall National Memorial
• 2008 - Handel's Messiah Rocks, Emerson College
• Dec 1 & 2, 2008 - Joe's Pub
• December 5, 2010 - Playhouse Square Center
• December 16, 2012 - Birdland
• May 15, 2014 - National September 11 Memorial and Museum
• February 13, 2015 - Kennedy Center
• 2016/17 - Feeling Good Tour

• LaChanze at the Internet Broadway Database
• LaChanze at IMDb
• ​The Color Purple​ at the Internet Broadway Database
• LaChanze at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• LaChanze - Downstage Center interview at American Theatre Wing.org