--- title: LaChanze Has an Expansive Vision for Broadway's Future description: Tony winner LaChanze sees increasing racial equity as benefiting all audiences, not just Black ones. canonical: https://time.com/collections/closers-2025/7210595/lachanze-broadway-vision-future/ article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-02-06T12:02:40.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:24:42.772Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: LaChanze Has an Expansive Vision for Broadway's Future og:description: Tony winner LaChanze sees increasing racial equity as benefiting all audiences, not just Black ones. og:url: https://time.com/collections/closers-2025/7210595/lachanze-broadway-vision-future/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbc7a7b5cb91b20eb/6998b305a97fc0d871a72261/time-2025-closers-lachanze.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: LaChanze Has an Expansive Vision for Broadway's Future og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: LaChanze Has an Expansive Vision for Broadway's Future twitter:description: Tony winner LaChanze sees increasing racial equity as benefiting all audiences, not just Black ones. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbc7a7b5cb91b20eb/6998b305a97fc0d871a72261/time-2025-closers-lachanze.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Feb 06, 2025 # LaChanze Has an Expansive Vision for Broadway's Future > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with Ally. Ally is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: July 2026. ## Ally: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Ally is a digital financial services company offering online-only banking, including checking and savings accounts, through Ally.com and its mobile apps. Launched in 2009 as an original disruptor in financial services, Ally was built to challenge outdated banking norms with a simpler, more convenient way to bank. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. ## Video: The Closers: LaChanze [Watch (HLS stream): The Closers: LaChanze](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/d8v8ceui.m3u8) (3:44)  _Published 2025-01-31. When LaChanze was publicizing the play Jaja’s African Hair Braiding during the 2023 season, she approached it a little differently than most Broadway producers. Instead of relying on the traditional avenues of theatrical publicity—the New York Times, Playbill.com—LaChanze decided to go directly to the audience she wanted to reach. She drove to Harlem with a stack of flyers, going from one Black hair salon to another, inviting owners and their customers to see the show with a special discount code. Then she invited 25 salon owners to join her for dinner at the famous Harlem restaurant Melba’s to talk to them about the show. “I knew it was going to be difficult to get the women who own these salons to even know that they’re invited to this space, and to feel welcomed,” she said. “I told them, ‘We’re doing a story about your lives on Broadway.’”_ by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/) ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent  LaChanze LaChanzeJenny Anderson—Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions When LaChanze was publicizing the play _Jaja’s African Hair Braiding_ during the 2023 season, she approached it a little differently than most Broadway producers. Instead of relying on the traditional avenues of theatrical publicity—the New York _Times,_ Playbill.com—LaChanze decided to go directly to the audience she wanted to reach. She drove to Harlem with a stack of flyers, going from one Black hair salon to another, inviting owners and their customers to see the show with a special discount code. Then she invited 25 salon owners to join her for dinner at the famous Harlem restaurant Melba’s to talk to them about the show. “I knew it was going to be difficult to get the women who own these salons to even know that they’re invited to this space, and to feel welcomed,” she said. “I told them, ‘We’re doing a story about your lives on Broadway.’” The showwas nominated for five Tonys. But for LaChanze, 63, that was just the beginning. She wants her projects to be an on-ramp for a new type of Broadway audience. “All of these women came down to Broadway and they left our show and walked down the street and said, ‘Hey, I want to see _that_ show,’” she says. After getting her big break (and first Tony nomination) originating the role of Ti Moune in _Once on This Island_ in 1990_,_ LaChanze won a Tony for her performance as Celie in [_The Color Purple_](https://time.com/6549196/the-color-purple-im-here-celie-fantasia/)_,_ and got a third acting nomination for her 2021 performance in _Trouble in Mind._ But recently, she has her eye on making an even bigger impact. In 2022, she made her debut as a Broadway producer with [Suzan-Lori Parks](https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people-2023/6269454/suzan-lori-parks/)’ _Topdog/Underdog_ and the musical hit [_Kimberly Akimbo,_](https://time.com/6129304/best-theater-performances-2021/)which together won six Tonys, including Best Revival of a Play and Best Musical. That year, she also became president of Black Theatre United, an organization she co-founded with such Black theater luminaries as [Audra McDonald](https://time.com/6266889/audra-mcdonald-interview-parenting/), Brian Stokes Mitchell, and [Billy Porter](https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people-2020/5888234/billy-porter/) to demand racial equity in commercial theater in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. In 2021, Black Theatre United released [A New Deal for Broadway,](https://www.blacktheatreunited.com/portfolio/a-new-deal-for-broadway/#:~:text=The%20New%20Deal%20for%20Broadway,Black%20professionals%20in%20the%20arts.) which led several major theater companies to commit to diversifying their creative teams. In 2022, at the urging of Black Theatre United, the Cort Theatre was renamed the [James Earl Jones](https://time.com/7019442/james-earl-jones-remembrance/) Theatre and the Brooks Atkinson Theatre was renamed the Lena Horne Theatre. The group also built a marketing internship program in order to teach young Black creatives about the business of commercial theater and will launch a design expo and a musical-theater scholarship later this year. The goal, LaChanze says, is to create a pipeline of Black talent to make Broadway more diverse. “We hear oftentimes: We want to give a person a job, but we can't find them, or we don't know where the budding lighting designers are. Where do you find them?” she says. “And we're like, Well, let us show you where they are.” LaChanze sees increasing racial equity as benefiting all audiences. Thanks in part to her efforts, the 2022-2023 Broadway season saw the most diverse audience to date, with 29% of audience members identifying as BIPOC, according to the Broadway League. “One of the issues that I have with our industry, commercial theater, is that we do think about shows as being the Black show, the female show, the gay show, the white show, the Asian show, the Hispanic show,” she says. “Once we get past that, we will start being more inclusive overall.” She recalls specifically telling the marketing team of _Jaja’s African Hair Braiding_ not to emphasize Black women in the marketing materials. “It is obvious that this show is starring Black women. We do not have to say it. We just have to say, ‘Come see this great play.’” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/closers-2025/7210595/lachanze-broadway-vision-future/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/closers-2025/7210595/lachanze-broadway-vision-future/"},"headline":"LaChanze Has an Expansive Vision for Broadway's Future","datePublished":"2025-02-06T12:02:40.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:24:42.772Z","description":"Tony winner LaChanze sees increasing racial equity as benefiting all audiences, not just Black ones.","url":"https://time.com/collections/closers-2025/7210595/lachanze-broadway-vision-future/","keywords":["Closers2025","list","franchise","Magazine","Special Project","sponsorshipblock"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbc7a7b5cb91b20eb/6998b305a97fc0d871a72261/time-2025-closers-lachanze.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Charlotte Alter","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/"}],"creator":"Charlotte Alter","articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbc7a7b5cb91b20eb/6998b305a97fc0d871a72261/time-2025-closers-lachanze.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/closers2025/","name":"Closers2025"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/closers-2025/7210595/lachanze-broadway-vision-future/","name":"LaChanze Has an Expansive Vision for Broadway's Future"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Closers: LaChanze","description":"When LaChanze was publicizing the play Jaja’s African Hair Braiding during the 2023 season, she approached it a little differently than most Broadway producers. 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