Finding the Spotlight

When the first coronavirus lockdowns went into effect, and the global mood was a moan of quiet agitation and confusion,  the actor Mackenzie Meadows ’16 was still working towards her bachelor’s of fine arts degree at James Madison University. The performing arts were in a state of precarity. Shows were closing. Jobs were hard to come by. Actors, out of both desperation and the animalistic urge to express, began holding performances in public spaces. Nobody knew what would become of Broadway. But Meadows, who that same year landed with a boutique talent agency to represent her, envisioned a clear trajectory she wanted her career to take, regardless of any external circumstances. In an epoch defined by uncertainty, she was certain of herself. “Well, 2020 was happening and I didn’t know what was going on,” she says, “but I’ve always been someone that has had a lot of dreams and a lot of goals. It’s never been an option for me to not actualize those dreams. That’s just always been my mindset.”

In January, with her recent Broadway debut in the hit jukebox musical & Juliet, at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, where she performs as Lady Capulet/Nell/Juliet understudy, Meadows’s trajectory is materializing. And she’s not surprised. “As much as I am so incredibly grateful and humbled to be here, there’s also moments where I think, Well, yes, of course I’m here. I’m doing exactly what I said I was going to do,” Meadows says. “So, yes, pinch me: I’m on Broadway. But with that comes the confidence of knowing I’ve worked my butt off to be here.”

She speaks with a scarred gratitude, an appreciation born out of having had to endure a multitude of challenges in the pursuit of her self-determined trajectory. Her confidence — and her success — comes from faltering and getting back up again.

Growing up in Richmond, Meadows’s first love was for dance. Taking her first lessons at the Jessica Morgan School of Dance at two-and-a-half years old, she practiced with an exhausting diligence. When she was nine, she began to dance professionally with the American Ballet Theater, and then later with the Dance Theater of Harlem. All the demanding rigors that came with the craft taught her something about the expertise necessary to become truly great at

anything. “I was taking every style of dance for 16 years of my life, and it was intense,” she says. “When you reach a certain level of dance, you are required to take strength and conditioning classes. And on top of that I was dancing six days a week. Looking back, all of that training conditioned me well for acting. It gave me more creative muscles, too.”

As she continued refining her craft as a performer, she struggled socially at Collegiate. She had trouble fitting in. “I was a Black girl going to an incredibly white school. I grew up in white spaces my entire life,” she says. “I always stood out. I was loud. I was never the beauty standard.”

She credits the confidence she freely wields now, in part, to the lack of it she had

growing up. “Feeling incredibly different, and feeling like no one really liked me other than the close friends that I was lucky enough to have, and having such incredible and kind and caring teachers — like Mike Boyd — really helped teach me to love myself,” she says. “Some of the things I went through growing up gave me such thick skin. Now, I don’t even hear certain things. I learned how to embrace who I am. I really think that’s half the battle.”

The other side of the battle is, of course, performing. Meadows does that with ease. Or at least she makes it look easy. After graduating from JMU, she landed her first role playing Jane in A Bronx Tale. At the time, it was the perfect role for her, the female lead in something that padded her resume and allowed her to flex her skill. Her first big break came when she played Maureen in RENT, at the Paper Mill Playhouse. It was a role that challenged her and opened her up creatively.

“I remember when I got the initial audition for RENT, I told my agents, ‘I’m going to land this. Apologies to everyone else, but they can go home,’” Meadows recalls. Later, when her premonition became fact and she booked the role, her director told her that within the first moments of the first audition she was performing as if she were telling the director the role was hers. “He said to me, ‘You were the fastest person I casted. I knew I wanted you from the first audition.’ And that was my first big break.”

After RENT, in 2023, things happened quickly. She booked her first TV show that same year. She then went on to star in multiple shows, new works, and off-Broadway performances both in and out of New York City. She navigated her career with an intentionality rare for someone just starting out in an industry that necessitates small gig roles that simply pay the bills.

“I’ve told my agents: I’ll do a few roles as a resume builder. But then by 2023 I had to be intentional with what stories I was choosing to tell,” she says. “I will not do shows that I don’t think push the needle forward when it comes to being a woman or when it comes to being a Black woman. Those conversations have kept me on this trajectory.”

Those conversations are how, on Jan. 9, at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, it happened exactly as Meadows imagined it would. Meadows was scheduled to play Juliet for her Broadway debut. Because the cast was already well established, she rehearsed by herself for weeks — learning the lines, the role transitions, the choreography. Throughout the day of her debut, a professional, she kept her emotions bottled. Then, during the final song and curtain call, when the cast and audience was applauding her with recognition, tears came rushing forward. But just for a moment. She had to close out the rest of the ensemble’s rendition of Katy Perry’s “Roar,” which she did with a huge grin on her face. “It was just this overwhelming sense of everything I’d been working for,” Meadows recalls. “I had over 100 people in the audience that night — from family and friends to teachers and mentors — and to share that moment with them meant a lot. It was a moment of pure gratitude.”