After More Than 17 Years On Broadway And Countless Dazzling Performances, NaTasha Yvette Williams Gets Her First Tony Nomination

Earlier this month Natasha Yvette Williams got her first Tony nomination for her intoxicating performance as Sweet Sue, the fearless boss and band leader in the new Broadway musical, Some Like It Hot. A veteran of eight Broadway shows over 17 years, Williams could have been nominated several times during the course of her career.

In 2006, when she made her Broadway debut in the Color Purple, while she wasn’t in the original cast, that year the Tonys added a “first replacement” category. “When I started in the show, that category existed and I could have been eligible. But then, by the time the Tony nominations came around they had done away with the category,” says Williams. “I’m a pretty positive person and began saying, ‘Okay. Next time. Next show.’”

Playing Aretha Franklin in A Night With Janis Joplin she was eligible to be nominated for a Tony for her performance. “But I broke my foot the night before the audience came,” she says. “You’re only eligible if you open the show. I'm listed as a replacement for myself on Broadway because I didn't perform opening night. So that took me out of the running for that show.”

Then there was the Gershwins' Porgy and Bess. “But there were so many great shows that year there wasn't room for one more nominee,” says Williams. “So I said, ‘Next year. It's all right. Next time.’” With the rest of her shows, like Chicago, where she took over the role of Mama Morton and stayed in the part for years, which she adored, she was also ineligible to be nominated.

And then Some Like It Hot came along. A glorious twist on the 1959 film of the same title, this epic and electrifying musical not only has miles and miles of heart and panache, its messages of love and acceptance run deep.

It’s 1930. Prohibition is raging. Sweet Sue, who works a thankless gig as a band leader in a Chicago nightclub says early on, “I’m sick of these cut rate Capones. I lead their bands, I hock their booze. And then I end up in the clink. Time I be my own damn boss.”

Arrested once more after a raid, Sweet Sue gets inspired to launch her own gig outside Chicago. “I decide that I'm not doing this for anybody else anymore,” says Williams. “I'm going to start an all-girl band and travel the country. And the safest place for us to travel is out west.” Only Sweet Sue doesn’t know that two of her newest musicians (J. Harrison Ghee and Christian Borle)have a secret. After they witness a gangster murder they’re on the lamb with the mob in hot pursuit. And that’s not all.

“As they run, they decide to disguise themselves as women and go on the road with us. But we don't know what they are hiding,” says Williams. “The show is about them and us going on the road and our journey.”

Nominated for 13 Tony Awards Some Like It Hot has a dream cast and creative team in front and behind the curtain. Now playing on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre, the musical is directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw, with a book by Matthew López and Amber Ruffin, songs from Marc Shaiman (music and lyrics) and Scott Whitman (lyrics). The killer cast features J. Harrison Ghee, Christian Borle, Adrianna Hicks, Kevin Del Aguila, Adam Heller, Mark Lotito and Angie Schworer. The show is chock full of dazzling dance numbers and plenty of toe-tapping tunes. (Some Like It Hot’s original cast album is on Concord Theatricals Recordings.)

With Sweet Sue Williams walks a delicate tightrope. She’s all about joy, love of music, making her band thrive and be their best. And yet she has to keep everyone together and alive.

“She’s doing a difficult little dance and I think she makes it look easy,” says Williams who started singing at the age of three in a tiny tot choir in her church in Rochester, New York. (The family ultimately moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina.) “If we really look at what was going on, she is pretty remarkable. She tries not to put the weight of the time period on the girls. Sweet Sue says, ‘You're drinking! We can't be acting crazy and doing this.’ I'm a black woman leading the band across America and it's prohibition. We have to think about each other and our safety.”

There’s a line early on in the show where Minnie, the drummer, asks Sweet Sue if they’re going to be heading south. Sweet Sue replies, “Hey, it's 1933. Look at me and ask me that again. As Williams explains, “We clearly are not going south. The writers have been so specific and intentional with everything. This puts us where we are supposed to be.”

Also, as much as Sweet Sue believes she is in charge and is devoted to protecting and caring for her band, she also relies on them. “I love the fact that she is so secretly entwined with them,” says Williams. “They are really what is holding her up. The great thing about Sweet Sue is that she thinks she guiding everything, but everybody is working together and moving toward the same goal.”

The morning the Tony Award nominations were announced Williams, Christian Borle, J. Harrison Ghee and the cast of Some Like It Hot performed their piping hot number 'What Are You Thirsty For?' on the Today show. “I was in the rest room and came up the stairs and heard people screaming,” says Williams. “I thought, we got another nomination.” And then her category came up and she heard her name. “I lost my breath and cried,” says Williams.” It was a beautiful moment. It surpassed my dreams and expectations because we all got to experience it together as a cast.”

For Williams, who has a master’s degree in acting and math from Michigan State University, performing is total magic. “It feels like I’m doing something I never want to end. I feel accepted in a way that I can't always feel walking around in the world,” she says. “All my insecurities and doubts about myself dissipate into the character and I can just fly.”

What is also meaningful for Williams is to be in an exuberant show that celebrates all that bonds us. “Some Like It Hot maps out a place for everyone to be welcome,” she says. As she sees it, the show offers something powerful, especially after a pandemic. “We have an opportunity to come together,” says Williams. “We can laugh and be with people in a space that says, ‘you belong here.’”