Jaja's African Hair Braiding - 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 Dede Ayite is a costume designer whose Broadway credits include A Soldier’s Play, Slave Play, American Son, and Children of a Lesser God. Select Off-Broadway credits include Secret Life of Bees, FireFlies, Marie and Rosetta, Tell Hector I Miss Him (Atlantic); By The Way, Meet Vera Stark, JHAT (Signature); BLKS, Collective Rage…, School Girls… (MCC); Slave Play (NYTW); Sugar in Our Wounds (MTC); If Pretty Hurts…, Mankind, Bella: An American Tall Tale (Playwrights Horizons); The Royale (Lincoln Center); Ugly Lies the Bone (Roundabout); and brownsville song [b-side for tray] (LCT3). Regionally, Ayite’s works has appeared at Oregon Shakespeare Festival; ... read more Stefania Bulbarella is a Video and Projections Designer and Director from Buenos Aires, Argentina based in Brooklyn, NY. Off Broadway credits include: Space Dogs (MCC), Turtle on a Fence Post (Theatre 555), Semblance (New York Theatre Workshop), The Watering Hole (Signature Theatre). www.stefaniabulbarella.com ... read more Jiyoun Chang (Lighting Designer) Credits: Slave Play (Nominations for Tony, Drama Desk, Henry Hewes, Broadway), Marry Wives (Delacorte Theatre), Letters of Suresh (2nd Stage), Bina’s Six Apples (Lloyd Suh, Children’s Theatre Company), The Chinese Lady (Long Wharf Theatre, The Public), For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf (The Public), Marys Seacole (Henry Hewes Nom, LCT3). More credits at 2nd Stage, Roundabout, ATC, NYTW, BAM(ObieAward), MCC, Signature, Guggenheim, Berkeley Rep, Cal Shakes (TBA Nom), Guthrie, The Old Globe, OSF(Falstaff Award), Studio Theatre. ... read more LCT: Pass Over (LCT3), Pipeline, Other Desert Cities. Off-Broadway: Mrs. Murray’s Menagerie (Ars Nova); The House That Will Not Stand, Fetch Clay Make Man (New York Theatre Workshop); He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box, The Winter’s Tale (TFANA). Additional theater: Father Comes Home From the Wars, How to Catch Creation, Until The Flood (Goodman); Familiar (Steppenwolf); Ink (Kennedy Center); The Comedy of Errors (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); As You Like It (Stratford Shakespeare Festival); The American Clock (The Old Vic). Awards include Grammy, ASCAP and Obie awards. ... read more Nikiya Mathis is an actress and Hair/wig designer. She is the recipient of the 2024 Special Tony Award for her recent work on Jaja's African Hair Braiding, the first Wig designer to ever receive a special Tony award for a specific work. And one of two wig designers to ever recieve the highest honor in theater. She has received 2 Henry Hewes Design Awards, a Drama Desk Award, the Kathleen Perkins Behind the Curtain Award from Black Women on Broadway, and is one of only 2 African American wig designers to win Obie Awards. Nikiya is also a ... read more Whitney White is an Obie and Lily Award winning, as well as a Tony Award nominated director, writer and musician originally from Chicago, based in New York. She was a staff writer on Boots Riley’s I’M A VIRGO and is a believer of multi-disciplinary work and collaborative processes. Recent directing: Jaja’s African Hair Braiding (Broadway), Jordans (The Public Theatre), The Secret Life of Bees (The Almeida, UK), Soft (New York Times Critic’s Pick, MCC), On Sugarland (New York Theatre Workshop), Our Dear Dead Drug Lord (New York Times Critic’s Pick), What to Send Up When it Goes Down (New York ... read more