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Lillias White

BIOGRAPHY

Lillias White is an American singer and actress of stage, television, and film best known for portraying Sonja in Cy Coleman's The Life, and understudying the role of Effie in the original 1981 production of Dreamgirls, which she then played the part in the 1987 revival, for which she won the Drama League Award for Best Actress in a Musical. A Brooklyn, New York native, she made her Broadway debut in Barnum as Joice Heth in 1981. White has also appeared on Broadway in Cats as Grizabella, Carrie as Miss Gardner, Once on This Island as Asaka, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying as Miss Jones, and Chicago as Matron. For her role in Cy Coleman's The Life, she won the Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards for her portrayal of a world-weary, no-nonsense, streetwise hooker named Sonja. In 1989 she won an Obie Award for her performance in the Off-Broadway musical Romance in Hard Times. She was nominated for a Tony Award again in 2010 for her work as Funmilayo in Fela Kuti's Fela! Off-Broadway White has performed Dinah Was at the Gramercy Theatre as singer Dinah Washington, and the Second Stage Theatre production of Regina Taylor's musical Crowns, for which she and the cast won the AUDELCO Award, Outstanding Ensemble Performance. White also appeared Off-Broadway in the Primary Stages production of the play While I Yet Live by Billy Porter and with Scott Wakefield Off-Broadway in the York Theatre Company's World premiere of Alan Govenar's musical Texas in Paris. Most Recently White, Andre DeShields, Stefanie Powers and Georgia Engel appeared in the new musical Half Time, directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell.

White's concert performances to benefit the Actors' Fund of America include Dreamgirls, Funny Girl, and Hair. She performed with the Brooklyn Philharmonic in a concert of works by Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, and George and Ira Gershwin celebrating the orchestra's 50th anniversary. She also has appeared in concert at Carnegie Hall singing Harold Arlen songs with the New York Pops. White has toured and performed her one-woman show From Brooklyn to Broadway at the Kennedy Center's "Barbara Cook's Spotlight", singing songs by Cy Coleman.

White's screen appearances include a regular role on Sesame Street, Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and NYPD Blue. White is also known for voicing Calliope in Disney’s Hercules, portraying Evette in the film Pieces of April, and for her work as Fat Annie (Cadillac's mother) in the Netflix series The Get Down. She has also starred as Bloody Mary in Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific on PBS' Great Performances with Reba McEntire and in the PBS documentary In Performance at the White House.

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