She Believed She Could: Ariana DeBose Takes Center Stage

If there's a word to define Ariana DeBose, it's "authentic."

The actress - currently appearing in her Tony-nominated role of Disco Donna in Summer: The Donna Summer Musical on Broadway - revels in her uniqueness and brings her particular blend of thoughtful craft and forward thinking to everything she does.

At first, DeBose's performing passion had a different direction: she was a dancer, with few thoughts of singing professionally. She loved musical theatre, but related most closely to the characters who danced - including Rent's Mimi, who she recalls being her favorite part of the first Broadway show she saw.

By high school, DeBose had begun to realize that theatre might be a viable option, and when she auditioned for a local production of Aida, she surprised even herself when she was cast as the leading lady. But there were some challenges ahead for the talented young dancer.

"It was me and the cast album with Heather Headley and Adam Pascal for months," she laughs. "It was trial and error. I knew dance - that's my 'first language.' I did not understand what it meant to just stand still and say the words or just sing without using dance as a way to interpret."

Despite discovering the joys of musical theatre, DeBose's first professional steps still leaned into her dance background. A brief stint on TV's So You Think You Can Dance started out well but ended with a fairly quick elimination - but the judges noted that she seemed most at home as a performer during the musical theatre styles, and their feedback stuck with her.

"When you think that you've failed, you're in a moment for yourself where you feel like you have to prove something. If you want to survive, to continue on the path you're on, you have to prove to yourself that you have it and that you are worthy."

Early on, DeBose found herself in the ensemble of several shows - Bring It On, Motown, and the revival of Pippin (where she even stepped in as the Leading Player). The work was relatively steady and her resume was growing. But it wasn't until a certain Founding Father came to Broadway that DeBose landed in the spotlight in an unusual way. DeBose was in the ensemble of Hamilton, but in a unique track that came to be known as "the Bullet": a dancer whose movements, in every character she plays, bring her in close contact with characters who die, culminating in movement that personifies the climactic fatal bullet.

"It's not every day that you're allowed to create something that is within an ensemble, but is also very singular," she explains as she discusses how she originated the now-iconic track under the guidance of choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler. "I felt like I got to bring storytelling to a new generation... I wanted to create a track that felt like the dancing you would have seen from Donna McKechnie or Chita Rivera or Charlotte d'Amboise, that's always the track I'm trying to create."

It wasn't just the dancing that made this track special for DeBose, though, nor for fans.

"I think people gravitated towards [her Bullet] because the idea of a brown woman personifying the Bullet, it was a statement on a statement. In a way, [the ensemble characters] were all manipulating [the principals], it was kind of Pippin-esque in that way, but we were shadows - past, present, and things yet to come. And my particular shadow was the angel of death."

A conversation with DeBose is full of moments like this: pivoting from sincere joy in technique and craft to insights on the bigger picture of Broadway, the arts, and the world we live in today. When we shift to talk about the past few seasons on Broadway and her love for being part of new works ("You're making the rules, and I like making up rules and having a say in the world that I get to play in every day"), she praises the literal diversity of Hamilton's season along with the stylistic diversity of the following year before turning to a discussion of this past season - one which was dominated by screen-to-stage adaptations and "true" stories, Summer included.

"I don't like the term 'jukebox musical' because it implies there's no story there," she explains. "You're seeing the rise of shows about icons, and we don't really know how we're going to define that genre yet. You're seeing a shift towards nostalgia, and that shift goes towards the time we live in... But it begs the question: are we generating new work? If we are gonna push forward stories that have been told on the big screen, what is the overall message we're sending - is it still [the same as the movie]? Are we telling stories that need to be told, are we telling stories that push us forward?" DeBose doesn't try to answer these questions, but the passion with which she explores them (and asks that the industry as a whole explores them) is evident.

DeBose is brimming with creativity, but she also notes that being in the theatre industry is essentially being your own independent business - albeit a very personal one.

"I bring my whole self to the roles that I play," she says, emphasizing that not only does she work to "find the truth in the material" as an actor, but that she has to keep up her skills as a singer, dancer, and actor, even when she's securely in an eight-times-a-week job. "The theme of my world these days is maintenance."

Being versatile and having a thick skin are two of the first things DeBose lists when asked about advice she'd give to young performers, but she also circles back to the idea of a performer essentially being an individual business.

"Start thinking about yourself as an artist as a walking business. How do you want to present your business? What can you provide to potential employers that they need? And make sure that you are at your best when you walk in any room." DeBose herself has had incredible success already, but one gets the feeling that the true best is yet to come.