Listen: Sharon Catherine Brown Shares Broadway Stories On WHY I'LL NEVER MAKE IT Podcast

With Black History Month coming to a close, Broadway and television actress Sharon Catherine Brown (Dreamgirls, Caroline or Change) joins host Patrick Oliver Jones to talk about her long family line of performers as well as when she knew she was born to be a drama queen. They also discuss how both of them met in the recent production of Anne of Green Gables at Goodspeed Opera House, which has aspirations of a future in New York City.

Listen below!

Brown was born in New York City and is the daughter of actor Johnny Brown, who portrayed Nathan Bookman on the 1970s sitcom Good Times as well as starred opposite Sammy Davis, Jr. in the Tony-nominated musical Golden Boy. As a young girl she made her Broadway debut in Maggie Flynn as one of the orphans, alongside other newcomers like Irene Cara, Giancarlo Esposito, and Stephanie Mills. And Brown relays a harrowing experience one performance when the set started to crumble underneath her feet.

With her father on Good Times, she auditioned for the role of his daughter but for some reason wasn't cast in the role, but years later she would appear on the show as fun girl Nancy Colton. While Brown has appeared in soap operas like Generations and other sitcoms like The Jeffersons and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, it is her episode on A Different World that sticks out to her and the recognition she's received online as an opera singer, even though she is not an actual opera singer.

But theater is where she got her start and remains her first love. From Broadway productions of Dreamgirls and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat to the national tours of The Wiz and Jekyll & Hyde, ShayCat (as she's known to friends) has experiences and a resume that any actor would love to have. She is making history and leaving a legacy with every performance. It is a surety of herself and confidence in her actions that makes her someone to admire and applaud, because she knows her worth as an actor. She has gone through her own challenges and felt the ups and downs of this career and has come through them a better performer and a better person.

Listen to her episode on Why I'll Never Make It, available on all podcast platforms.

Sharon Catherine Brown

has worked frequently as a stage actress, including as Effie in both Broadway and touring productions of the musical Dreamgirls, where she was nominated for a Helen Hayes Award in 1987 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Non-Resident Production for her role in that touring production. She has also toured with productions of The Wiz, Rent and Jekyll & Hyde and was the narrator in versions of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Onscreen she's been in films like A Chorus Line and Sister Act 2 as well as soap operas like Love of Life and Generations. Brown also portrayed a young Louise in a 1981 flashback episode of The Jeffersons and most recently on the Good Fight, opposite Audra McDonald.

WHY I'LL NEVER MAKE IT

is one of Feedspot's Top Theater Podcasts and received a 2022 Communicator Award of Distinction. This podcast comes out every other week and is hosted and produced by Off-Broadway and National Touring actor Patrick Oliver Jones (The Addams Family, Evita). Past WINMI guests include Misty Rosas (The Mandalorian), Jerry Mitchell (Kinky Boots), and Geoffrey Owens (Cosby Show).

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