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People & Profiles

Heather Headley Rocks the Waa-Mu Show

Archival video shows a powerful young voice, ready for stardom.

February 2, 2022
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Heather Headley ’97 brings down the house with her performance of the original song “Children of Privilege” from Northwestern’s 1995 Waa-Mu Show, Rites of Spring. In the years since her time in Cahn Auditorium, Headley has won a Tony Award for Best Actress (for the Elton John/Tim Rice Broadway show Aida) and a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary R&B Gospel Album (for her album Audience of One). She also starred both on Broadway and in TV shows such as Chicago Med and Sweet Magnolias. Headley received The Alumnae of Northwestern University’s 2020 Alumnae Award. 

Read more about Headley from her days as a rising star in the Summer 2000 edition of Northwestern Magazine.

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Reader Responses

  • I was there! I still remember watching this unassuming young woman, pushing a mop bucket onto the stage. And her beginning from a soulful life's story being simply told, and slowly building and building. And being amazed at the overwhelming force of her sheer determination to be heard.

    —Paul Wolf ’76 MMus, Wilmette, Ill., via Northwestern Magazine

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