Lillias White Will Not Return to Crowns
(Photo: Michael Portantiere)
On December 23, TheaterMania reported that Lillias White, one of the stars of the Off-Broadway show Crowns at the Second Stage Theatre, had been missing performances of the show due to a combination of scheduling conflicts and illness.
At the time, a production spokesman, for the show said of White that "She had it in her contract that she was scheduled to be out for almost the entire week beginning December 9 because she had Christmas concert engagements, and then she got sick after that. She was on doctor-ordered vocal rest last week. She’s seeing a doctor again today, according to Second Stage, so they should know more later today." Today, the spokesman said that White will not be returning to the show, which will end its limited run as scheduled this coming Sunday, January 5.
White won a 1997 Tony Award for her featured performance in the Cy Coleman musical The Life. She also appeared on Broadway in Dreamgirls, Once on This Island, and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and she played Dinah Washington in the Off-Broadway bio-musical Dinah Was.
Adapted and directed by Regina Taylor, Crowns is a "play with gospel music" based on a best-selling book of the same name by Michael Cunningham and Craig Marberry that collected oral histories and photographs of African-American women in their church hats.
