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Zurin Villanueva has won Arena Stage's Finding Yolanda contest, and will play Yolanda in the theater's upcoming production of Regina Taylor's musical Crowns, March 27-April 26. Kenneth Lee Roberson will direct.

This Helen Hayes Awards winning musical is adapted from the book by Michael Cunningham and Craig Marberry. It tells the story of Yolanda, a young woman who faces a change in her life and through it finds her true promise and identity. Complete casting will be announced at a later date.

Originally from Brooklyn, New York where she attended LaGuardia High School for the performing arts, Villanueva is a senior Musical Theater major at Howard University. Her credits include The Stephen Schwartz Project. Other theater credits include Songs for a New World, Working, Hamlet, and A Chorus Line.

For more information, visit arenastage.org.