In a moment that bridged legacy, lineage, and living artistry, “CATS: The Jellicle Ball” star André De Shields and Tony Award-winning producer LaChanze were welcomed for a private, curator-led visit to the Schomburg Center for Research in African American Culture in Harlem in honor of African American History Month. The intimate walk-through offered two trailblazing theater artists the chance to encounter the archives that frame the very history they now help shape.
The visit was curated to focus on ballroom culture, African American theatre history, and artifacts connected directly to De Shields’s and LaChanze’s groundbreaking careers. Moving through the collections, they viewed rare photographs, news clippings, original scripts, and other materials documenting the evolution of ballroom houses, African American queer expression, and the enduring impact of African American performers. They saw Historic Broadway milestones alongside items tied to their own work, underscoring how firmly their contributions fit into a larger cultural continuum.
For De Shields, a Tony Award-winner whose career spans more than five decades, the visit doubled as an act of remembrance. The Schomburg found rare black-and-white photographs from his days on stage during the critically acclaimed run of “The Wiz,” bringing an earlier chapter of his career into the room.
LaChanze — Tony-winning producer, acclaimed performer, and a force for amplifying diverse voices — engaged deeply with materials chronicling the resilience and innovation of African American creatives. She also signed an original copy of her first children’s book, “Little Diva,” adding her own mark to a space that has long safeguarded African American stories.
Tony Award-winning producer LaChanze and “CATS: The Jellicle Ball” star André De Shields at Schomburg Center. (Photo courtesy of Taylor Merced — the Chamber Group)
The setting could not have been more fitting. Founded in 1925 and named a National Historic Landmark in 2017, the Schomburg Center is one of the world’s leading institutions devoted to the preservation, research, interpretation, and exhibition of materials focused on African American, African Diasporan, and African experiences. As a research division of the New York Public Library, it houses more than 11 million items and presents programming that illuminates the breadth of global African American history, arts, and culture.
That sense of continuity runs straight into “CATS: The Jellicle Ball,” a vivid testament to merging theatrical excellence with the pageantry and chosen-family ethos of ballroom culture. Based on T.S. Eliot’s “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s worldwide phenomenon “CATS,” the production reimagines the musical in a kaleidoscope of glittering spectacle, iconic music, and electrifying ballroom choreography that the New York Times has called “a lightning strike that sets joy free.”
Directed by Obie Award-winners Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch, with choreography by Chita Rivera Award- and Obie Award-winners and New York City ballroom icons Omari Wiles (House of NiNa Oricci) and Arturo Lyons (House of Miyake-Mugler), it has been hailed as “a sexy celebration of love and resilience” by the New York Daily News and “the most exhilarating fun that can be had in the theater” by the Washington Post.
The private Schomburg tour was more than a courtesy stop. It served as a reminder that the archive and the stage are in constant conversation: Ballroom’s histories, preserved in boxes and photographs, are now being echoed and reimagined under Broadway lights. In bringing André De Shields and LaChanze into that space, the day made it clear that African American theater doesn’t just honor the past — it actively extends the past.
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