Author name: Charisma Media Staff

Heather Headley: From Trinidad to Broadway

Heather Headley grew up in Trinidad as a preacher’s kid. “I literally was born into the church. … My bedroom was the wall to the sanctuary,” she says. She lived with an understanding of Christ but as she got older she started to understand why her parents were so happy in church. “You start figuring it out because it now becomes a part of your life,” Headley says. It wasn’t easy being a preacher’s kid, but she adds: “I’m glad I grew up with the morals we had. I’m glad I grew up under that kind of regimen and instruction. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Headley and her family moved in 1989 from Trinidad to Indiana, where she participated in high school theater before going to Northeastern University to major in communications and musical theater. In her junior year she left to be an understudy on the Broadway show Ragtime. The following year she won the role of Nala in The Lion King. That performance led to her landing the title role in Aida, for which she won a Tony for Best Actress. She recorded two albums for the Broadway shows as well as two solo albums and won a Grammy for her debut R&B album.

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