A 24-12 months-aged triple risk who toured in “Hairspray,” competed on “American Idol” and came to the awareness of casting brokers with her TikTok movies has landed the plum purpose of Dorothy in the Broadway-bound manufacturing of “The Wiz.”
Nichelle Lewis will star in the national touring exhibit this drop and then make her Broadway debut next calendar year as the show’s heel-clicking heroine, following in the footsteps of these icons as Stephanie Mills and Diana Ross.
“It is been a really nuts journey,” she told The Involved Push prior to her official unveiling Monday. “I’m honored to be earning my debut as Dorothy. I know I’m subsequent in some truly massive footsteps.”
“The Wiz” excursions the U.S. setting up this slide in Baltimore and will land on Broadway in 2024. Lewis joins a solid that involves Wayne Brady and Alan Mingo Jr. sharing the part of the Wiz, Deborah Cox as Glinda, Kyle Ramar Freeman as the Lion, Phillip Johnson Richardson as the Tin Man, and Avery Wilson as the Scarecrow.
Lewis, who grew up in Virginia and graduated from Molloy College in 2021, utilised her modest TikTok account to share her voice — 1 music was “Home” from “The Wiz” — and it came to the notice of casting agents, who invited her to audition.
“I’m so fired up that this is a portion of my tale, because I feel like there’s so lots of men and women out there who started off out with this kind of a smaller pursuing and I feel like they’re tough on by themselves about it,” she stated. “But I’m like, ‘You never ever know who’s viewing individuals videos.’ I never knew that ‘The Wiz’ was looking at my videos.”
The show is tailored from “The Excellent Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum, with a ebook by William F. Brown, and audio and lyrics by Charlie Smalls.
Lewis suggests she identifies with Dorothy, who is alone on a journey of self-discovery in a new planet when also aiding other individuals alongside the way come across out who they are.
“I come to feel like it’s incredibly significant for individuals, particularly ideal now, to see that they can be potent just by becoming them selves and just by being specific and distinctive. So I consider that is how the demonstrate speaks to me,” she said.
“The Wiz” opened on Broadway in 1975 and gained seven Tonys, including best musical. It has this sort of typical tracks as “What Would I Do If I Could Feel” and “Ease On Down the Highway.” The first Broadway production featured Mills as Dorothy, Dee Dee Bridgewater as excellent witch Glinda and Andre De Shields as the Wiz.
A 1978 film version of “The Wiz” starred Ross, Lena Horne and Richard Pryor as the Wiz. Michael Jackson co-starred as the Scarecrow, with Nipsey Russell as the Tin Gentleman and Ted Ross as the Lion. NBC televised a live version in 2015 with Queen Latifah, Ne-Yo and David Alan Grier.
Lewis’ enjoy of songs was inspired by her father, who died when she was youthful. At his company, she sang “My Aid,” a tune he sang when he was a child, and shocked the congregation.
“I do not know what occurred that working day, but I guess just I experienced this voice come out of me that did not used to be there, but probably came from the hundreds of thousands of songs that I grew up listening to,” she states. “I felt like it was a little something that I could share with many others and it was a little something that I found designed other individuals pleased.”
Lewis received a Golden Ticket on the most modern sequence of “American Idol” but didn’t progress from the Hollywood round. Now she’s earned one more — foremost a Broadway show.
Her mom, normally, has been screaming and crying. “She’s like, ‘Your life is likely to modify.’ And I’m like, ‘I do not know. It likely will,’’ she claims, laughing. ”I truly feel so blessed and I’m so happy I get to share it with her.”
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