While many people spent Valentine’s Day with the traditional flowers and chocolates, Brittney Johnson was making theater history.
The young Broadway veteran was gently lowered onto the Gershwin Theatre stage to become the first Black actor to assume the role of Glinda full-time in “Wicked,” shattering a racial barrier on the day of love.
“One of the most rewarding parts of this is that it’s not just for me. I think it’s the least amount about me,” she says. “It’s about what it means for other people, for people that are going to see me do it or for people that just know that I’m here.”
Johnson is part of a sisterhood of women who have recently broken boundaries on American stages, including Emilie Kouatchou, who became the first Black woman to play Christine in “The Phantom of the Opera” on Broadway, and Morgan Bullock who has become Riverdance’s first Black female dancer.
