Tony award winning actor James Monroe Iglehart and his wife are some of the nicest people you will ever meet. We would know. They are our cousins. They met back and in high school show choir. James knew he wanted to be a performer. Dawn knew she wanted to be a scientist. From one role to the next James found his way to Broadway, while Dawn found her way to the lab. Living at opposite ends of the country and both finding their big breaks, James had a pivotal decision to make.
He and his friends, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Chris Jackson and Daveed Diggs (from Hamilton), Bill Sherman (MD for Sesame Street), Shockwave (Beat boxer for Electric Company), Utkarsh Ambudkar, and more started an improv comedy group called Freestyle Love Supreme. Lin-Manuel Miranda, after launching his Broadway hit, In the Heights, approached James with a project he was developing called Hamilton. He thought James would be great for the role, Mulligan, based on the rapper Busta Rhymes. After performing the role at an early Hamilton concert, James was approached by Disney and offered the role of Genie in Aladdin. Genie, or Mulligan?
Nearly a decade later James won a Tony Award for his role as Genie in Aladdin. Hamilton won all the others. As James was accepting his award, he gave a moving speech about his appreciation for his wife, Dawn. Not many people knew about Dawn or the struggles it took to get to that moment. They supported each other through thick and thin, and financial uncertainty. James recalls when he first arrived on Broadway how challenging his situation was.
“The MD was like, ‘James. You’re on Broadway now. You can spend some money.’ And I was like, ‘No. No I can’t. I’m literally living in a sublet doing this show while paying rent back in California.’”
Recently, Dawn was diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma and thyroid cancer. Both went through the chemotherapy journey together with unrelenting positivity. For Dawn and James, there is no stage too big. They just are the greatest. Now James is acting as Thomas Jefferson and Lafayette in Hamilton and Freestyle Love Supreme just finished a surprise Broadway tour. Everything has come full circle.
Behind the stars and their amazing stories is a deep connection with each other. Creatives need stability to keep them grounded, but also encouragement to shoot for the stars. May we all find the love support in the people that know us best and become a dynamic team like these two.
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