By Mervyn Rothstein
04 Jan 2010

	Lillias White and Kevin Mambo in Fela!
	photo by Monique Carboni

How did it feel on Tony night in 1997 when you won the Best Featured Actress in a musical award for The Life?

We worked on The Life for a long time. We did lots of backers' auditions in the course of the ten years it took to get it on Broadway. So winning was a dream come true. I did not take it for granted that I would win. People just kept saying to me, "You're going to win the Tony." I said, "Don't tell me that. I just want to do the show."

I still get chills when I think about hearing my name that night. My children were in the audience. My mother was there. I got messages and presents and flowers from all over the world. It was almost like I could feel my friends in their living rooms shouting when they heard my name.

Tell me about Fela!

It's something very different for Broadway. It's exciting to be in a show that's so off the beaten path.

You play the composer's mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, a renowned fighter for women's rights in Africa in the 20th century — and a role model for her son. Tell me about her.

She was a remarkable woman. She really cared about the people of Africa. She was an educator — very stern and strong-willed. She went up against the powers that be in Nigeria in order to better the lives of Nigerian women, and the women of all Africa. She died tragically. She was thrown from a window in her compound and suffered injuries that she later died from. She got very depressed — she couldn't grasp why this was done to her and her family when all she was trying to do was change things, improve things.

She was also a great influence on Fela. She took him with her to rallies and meetings, and he heard the speeches she made. Her determination probably rubbed off on him.

In the 1970s you were involved in the Black Power movement. Has that experience helped you understand the character you play?

I think that everything that has happened in my life has influenced every role I've played. I certainly understand her spirit as a fighter.

Finally, is there a role you'd like to play that you haven't played, something in the theatre you'd like to do that you haven't yet done?

I'd love to do Mame, Hello, Dolly!, Momma in Gypsy. But I really want to do more drama. I'd love to be in a modern version of Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit. I will always sing. If God gives me breath I will always sing in a club, in a living room or on the stage — I'll be somewhere in the world singing a song as long as I can. But I'd like to take my career on a different path. I would love to do more drama — in film, on TV and of course onstage.