Romeo and Juliet - Off-Broadway Creative Team

LaChanze's 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. 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 Featured Actress in a Musical and Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Actress in a Musical. She was a replacement "Sarah" in the Ahrens and Flaherty and Terrence McNally Broadway ... read more Broadway: End of the Rainbow, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, 110 In The Shade (Tony nom.), Shining City, Well, Awake and Sing! (Tony nom.), Rabbit Hole, The Light In The Piazza (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics awards), Reckless, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, Seven Guitars (Tony nom.), among others. Recent: King Lear (Public Theater), Kdo! (Foret Nationale, Brussels), Kafeneion (Athens Festival), Garden Of Earthly Delights (Minetta Lane); Orpheus X (TFANA), Kaos (NYTW). Awards: Obie/Sustained Excellence, among others. Ali assisted on productions in Minneapolis at Theatre de la Jeune Lune and Wintertime at the Guthrie Theater in 2003. Ali was assistant director on several productions in Boston, including Commonwealth Shakespeare Company (CSC) Shakespeare's Henry Vin 2002 and Macbeth in 2003. He assisted on the operas Powder Her Face in 2003 and Angels in America in 2006 for Opera Boston. He also assisted on The Miser for American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) in 2004. In 2009, he was assistant director for Giant and in 2010 for Angels in America, both at Signature Theatre Company. In 2010 he assisted on A Free ... read more More than 60 Broadway shows, including The Front Page, The Crucible, Blackbird, The Color Purple, Waitress, The King and I, War Horse, This Is Our Youth, Of Mice and Men, Romeo and Juliet, Lucky Guy, Death of a Salesman, Venus in Fur, A View From the Bridge. He has worked extensively at the Lincoln Center (Disgraced, Blood and Gifts), the Public Theater (Hamlet, King Lear, Mother Courage, Father Comes Home From The Wars), MTC (Ruined, Murder Ballad), NY Theatre Workshop (Red Speedo, Othello), and the Met Opera (Le Nozze di Figaro, Il Trovatore).