Priscilla Lopez

Priscilla Lopez, born February 26, 1948, in the Bronx, New York, is an American actress, singer, and dancer whose Broadway career spans from 1967 to 2022. Her parents, Francisco Lopez, a hotel banquet foreman, and Laura (née Candelaria), had relocated to New York from Puerto Rico. Lopez trained at Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts, where she majored in drama, and the institution would later figure directly into her most celebrated stage work.

Before Lopez could make her official Broadway debut, she was part of the cast of a musical adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany's, a production so troubled that it closed before opening night. Her actual debut came with Henry, Sweet Henry in late 1967, when she was nineteen, though that production closed after only two months. Her First Roman, the following year, fared even worse, lasting just two weeks. Despite these early setbacks, Lopez continued accumulating credits, including featured replacement roles in Company, choreographed by Michael Bennett, and Pippin, choreographed by Bob Fosse.

Her association with Bennett proved pivotal. Drawing on his experience working with her, Bennett recruited Lopez for the workshop process that led to A Chorus Line, which opened in 1975. She originated the role of Diana Morales, a character modeled after Lopez herself. In that role she introduced "What I Did for Love" and performed "Nothing," a song set at the High School of Performing Arts that drew directly on the kind of training environment Lopez had experienced. The production became one of Broadway's landmark long-running hits, and Lopez received a Theatre World Special Award in 1976.

In 1980, Lopez earned a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her work in A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine. The show's first act was a mini-musical about early Hollywood, with material by Dick Vosburgh, Frank Lazarus, and Jerry Herman, while the second act was a Marx Brothers parody in which Lopez played the Harpo role. The production ran nearly a year and a half. That same show connected her professionally with Tommy Tune, who in 1982 brought her on as his assistant for Nine, the musical adaptation of Federico Fellini's film 8½. During the run of Nine, Lopez joined the cast, taking over from Tony Award winner Liliane Montevecchi in the role of Liliane La Fleur.

Lopez appeared in the critically acclaimed play Anna in the Tropics on Broadway in 2003. From 2008 to 2011, she played Camilla in the Broadway production of In the Heights. In the summer of 2014, she took over the role of Berthe in the Broadway revival of Pippin from Annie Potts, performing the part from July 22 through August 31 of that year. Her Broadway work also includes The Skin of Our Teeth and Grand Horizons.

Off Broadway, Lopez's credits include Other People's Money, Key Exchange, Extremities, The Oldest Profession, Beauty of the Father, and Class Mother '68, for which she received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance. She appeared in the City Center Encores! production of Babes in Arms. In 2021, she was featured as Mabel in Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical, an internet production whose material referenced both "Nothing" and "What I Did for Love" with altered lyrics suited to the character. She also starred in The Gardens of Anuncia, a musical by Michael John LaChiusa about the life of choreographer Graciela Daniele, portraying the older version of Daniele.

On television, Lopez starred opposite McLean Stevenson in the 1978 Norman Lear series In the Beginning, playing a liberal nun. She guest-starred on the ABC drama Family, appearing as a dance friend of Kristy McNichol's character Buddy in the show's disco episodes. In 1983, she provided the voice of Herself the Elf in the animated special The Magic of Herself the Elf, and in 1986 she had a key role in the short-lived medical drama Kay O'Brien. Her 1993 television movie For the Love of My Child: The Anissa Ayala Story cast her as a mother who conceives a child to serve as a bone-marrow donor for an older daughter. Additional television appearances include L.A. Law, Law & Order, All in the Family, Trapper John M.D., Cosby, and B Positive. In 2021, she portrayed Abuela Sofia in the Disney Channel Original Movie Christmas...Again?!

Her film work includes a brief role in Center Stage, a supporting part in Maid in Manhattan as the mother of Jennifer Lopez's character, a role in the film adaptation of Tony n' Tina's Wedding, and an appearance in Musical Chairs as the disapproving mother of E.J. Bonilla's character.

Lopez is married to Vincent Fanuele. They have two children, Alex and Gabriella.