Interview: Broadway Advocacy Coalition's Christian Dante White Talks Celebrating Black Artists With BROADWAY VS 2022

Broadway Advocacy Coalition is presenting the second year of its fundraising event BROADWAY VS tonight at 7:30pm! Celebrating the careers of Tony Award nominees Norm Lewis and Joshua Henry, BAC will honor the legacies of these Broadway stars while raising funds to support BAC's initiatives to support and empower artist activists.

Featuring songs from both Norm Lewis and Joshua Henry's careers, BROADWAY VS is helping to uplift and celebrate the vital impact of Black culture on Broadway.

BroadwayWorld spoke with Broadway Advocacy Coalition co-founder Christian Dante White about tonight's event!

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This is the second year of Broadway Advocacy Coalition's fundraising event BROADWAY VS. Can you tell how this event came to be and what it's all about?

'Verzuz' is actually a program that was created during the pandemic from music producers Timbaland and Swizz Beatz, and they created it for black artists to do a fun battle with a catalog of music, but it's actually a celebration of their catalogs. My favorites were Brandy and Monica, Patti LaBelle and Gladys Knight, Alicia Keys and John Legend. Our musicians said, "What if we did this for Broadway black artists and celebrated their music?" So, we did it last year for Lillias White and Andre De Shields. It was very successful, it was also very special because it was still a pandemic, so we actually weren't able to be in the theater live, so it was so fun to be in the chat on YouTube with everyone, talking about music. That's one of the fun things about VS., everyone going "Oh, that's my favorite, I think that song should win!" It's really fun, and we're really excited to celebrate Norm Lewis and Joshua Henry.

What can we expect from this year's event specifically?

This year we are going to have our amazing host yet again, Amber Iman, who makes the evening fun. This year is going to be even more special because we're actually going to have an audience. And we made it a point to invite as many black, male, theatre artists, Broadway, Off-Broadway, front of house, back of house, stage managers, as we could. So, not only are we celebrating these two black men, but we'll have a room full of black male theatre artists to celebrate each other, together, and curate a community of love. So that's going to be extra special. We're all going to get really dressed up, we're treating this like our own Oscars, our own Tonys. And what's so special about this for me is that it's not waiting for the commercial award ceremonies to give you your flowers, and I'm hoping that other organizations realize this to. We don't have to wait for the Tony awards or Oscars to honor us, we can honor ourselves, and love on each other, which, to me, is just as important.

So, that's what we can expect. And lots of amazing ballads and vocals from Josh and Norm's catalogs, and both of them will be singing a little something at the very end, which will be very special. It should be a great night of theatre.

This event is helping to uplift the impact of Black culture on Broadway. How does it feel for you personally to be a part of something like this that is so important, and so necessary, and so celebratory?

It's really special for me personally because I've been very fortunate that out of five Broadway shows that I've done, two of them have celebrated black history and black artists, The Scottsboro Boys and Shuffle Along. I'm so grateful that because of Shuffle Along I was a part of the beginnings of being a co-founder of BAC, and our mission has always been to not only be artists, but be activists. So, it's special to me, to be able as a black male performer, to create something so that other black performers in our industry can come together and be celebrated, feel seen, and give them their flowers. Because we are often overlooked, we are often not put in situations where we can celebrate each other without seeing each other at an audition, we're never collectively together a lot. So this is really special. And I'm even more so proud that we get to honor Norm Lewis, we get to honor Joshua Henry, they are such theatre legends, and we have all these amazing black artists that will be in the audience. There is something special about the black theatre scene. When we come together there is an energy, it's a feeling, it's a spirit like no other, so I'm really excited to be in the room with everyone.

Like you just mentioned, you are a founding member of Broadway Advocacy Coalition. How does it feel to have been a founding member, and to be making such an impact on the theatre industry?

I never would have dreamed that six years ago we would have an office now in Times Square, we won a special Tony last year. When we were doing this, we had no idea what we were doing, we just knew we had to do something as we had so much passion to make space in this community, to shine a light on what's happening out in America and across the world with killing black people, and white supremacy. We knew that we needed to provide a space in our community that usual does everything else, but no one was specifically talking about these issues. So, it's always been birthed out of love, out of passion, out of a need to make space and bring awareness to people. And also give people a bridge to be able to help people to speak up, to give them, language, resources, because a lot of people don't know what to do. And it's something that I'm very proud of.

In the middle of the pandemic we were able to create a space for forums, to be able to speak up and talk, and have uncomfortable conversations. And we also provided a space for black artists to be able to come together, and feel together, and be in a private space where we could cry together, we did breath work, we did so many different things. It's just really special and really important, and I'm proud to be a part of this organization because we need more things like this as we navigate through all of this white supremacy that is happening in the world and within our art.

Do you have any final thoughts? Anything else you'd like to share?

I would just love for everyone to stream the show, and you'll find out more ways for people to help and stay connected to BAC. This is one of many things that we do, we'll be shining a light on some other programs that we have coming up. So, just continue to follow us, and support us, and let everyone know that the work isn't done. This is a step by step thing, this isn't a ten-week diet, this is a lifelong commitment to a change in the world. And artists need to be at the forefront of that, and that's what BAC does, that's our motto, and we're going to keep doing it. But we need people to follow us, support us, donate, and just send love to us as we are trying to send love out into the world.

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For more information on Broadway Advocacy Coalition, visit: https://www.bwayadvocacycoalition.org/