Breaking News: Tony-Winner LaChanze to Join Idina Menzel in IF/THEN

It's just been announced that Tony Award-Winner LaChanze has been cast in If/Then, the new musical by the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning creative team behindNext To Normal, Tom Kitt (music), Brian Yorkey (book and lyrics), andMichael Greif (director). The musical will play Broadway's Richard Rodgers Theatre (226 West 46th Street) in spring 2014, beginning preview performances onTuesday, March 4, and officially opening on Thursday, March 27, 2014.

LaChanze will play Kate, an elementary school teacher and new neighbor of Elizabeth, played by Idina Menzel. Additional casting will be announced shortly. For more information, please visit IfThenTheMusical.com.

LaChanze won the 2006 Tony Award for her performance in the musical The Color Purple. She has also performed on Broadway in Once on This Island (Tony and Drama Desk nominations),Ragtime, Company, and Uptown It's Hot. Off-Broadway, LaChanze received an Obie Award and Drama Desk nomination for her performance in Dessa Rose at Lincoln Center, appeared inThe Vagina Monologues, garnered another Drama Desk nomination for the musical Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, and starred in the world premiere of Inked Baby at Playwrights Horizons. Other theater credits include The Wiz, Baby, From the Mississippi Delta, and Spunk. She has been seen on the big screen in The Help (SAG Award, Best Ensemble), Side Effects, Breaking Upwards, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Disney's Hercules,For Love or Money, and Leap of Faith. On the small screen, LaChanze earned an Emmy Award for Handel's Messiah Rocks and has appeared in Lucy (CBS TV Movie), Law & Order: SVU, Sex and the City, New York Undercover, and The Cosby Show, among others. She has performed in the American Songbook Series for Lincoln Center and will be performing her concert, Love Hangover: LaChanze Sings Diana Ross in various venues this fall.

On the verge of turning 40, Elizabeth moves back to New York City, the ultimate city of possibility, intent on a fresh start - new home, new friends, and hopes for a resurgent career. But even in her carefully planned new life, the smallest decision or most random occurrence will impact her world in ways she never dreamt possible. Set against the ever-shifting landscape of modern day Manhattan, If/Then is a romantic and original new musical about how choice and chance collide and how we learn to love the fallout.

If/Then will have its world premiere in a pre-Broadway out-of-town engagement at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., beginning preview performances on Tuesday, November 5, 2013 and running through December 8, 2013.