Theater[edit]

White is a Brooklyn, New York native who made her Broadway debut in Barnum in 1981.^[1] She understudied the role of Effie in the original 1981 production of Dreamgirls and played the part in the 1987 revival, for which she won the Drama League Award for Best Actress in a Musical.^[2]


One of her first professional jobs was playing Dorothy in a national tour of The Wiz. ^[3] White has also appeared on Broadway as Grizabella in Cats, Asaka in Once on This Island, Miss Jones in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Matron "Mama" Morton in Chicago, as well as appearing in Carrie and Fela!. 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.^[4] Off-Broadway White has performed in the Public Theater production of the William Finn musical Romance in Hard Times (1989),^[5] for which she won the Obie Award, Dinah Was (1998) at the Gramercy Theatre as singer Dinah Washington,^[6] and the Second Stage Theatre production of Regina Taylor's musical Crowns (2002), for which she and the cast won the AUDELCO Award, Outstanding Ensemble Performance.^[7] In 2014, White appeared Off-Broadway in the Primary Stages production of the play While I Yet Live by Billy Porter.^[8] In 2015, White starred with Scott Wakefield Off-Broadway in the York Theatre Company's World premiere of Alan Govenar's musical Texas in Paris.^[9]


White, André De Shields, Stefanie Powers, and Georgia Engel appeared in the new musical Gotta Dance, directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell, which began performances on December 13, 2015, at Chicago's Bank of America Theatre, and ran through January 17, 2016.^[10][11][12]


In August 2022, it was announced that White would play the role of Hermes in the Broadway musical Hadestown beginning on September 13, 2022. She was the first woman to play the role.^[13] Her final performance was on 17 March 2024.^[14]