Disney's 'Hercules,' 'Law and Order,' 'The Help': This actress is coming to Provincetown

Meet an actress whose name you didn’t know you didn’t know.

For more than three decades, Rhonda “LaChanze” Sapp has been everywhere in the arts world, from Broadway (22 plays including her Tony-winning role in “The Color Purple”) to movies (Cicely Tyson’s daughter in “The Help” and a muse in Disney's "Hercules") to TV (“Law and Order Special Victims Unit,” “The Blacklist.”)

On Sunday, Aug. 20, she will perform for the first time on Cape Cod, with longtime friend Seth Rudetsky, for Broadway@Town Hall at Provincetown Town Hall concerts from 8:30 to 9:45 p.m. Tickets, $55-$108 with fees, at ptownarthouse.com/.

But first, back to her resume:

Kids and kids at heart will know LaChanze for voicing Terpsichore, one of The Muses, in the 1997 Disney classic “Hercules.” She reprised the role for the 1998 animated series.

Sapp, who works under her name “LaChanze,” recently added producing with Broadway shows “Kimberly Akimbo” and “Top Dog/Underdog,” for which she took home two Tony awards on the same night.

She is also a driving force behind “Black Theater United,” a nonprofit advocacy group with some of Broadway’s most well-known names (Audra MacDonald, Billy Porter) determined to change the look of Broadway.

“We have a new deal document, an agreement, of what we can do to create more diverse audiences,” LaChanze said in a telephone interview Sunday from Nashville, Tennessee.

“Forgive my voice, I just sang,” she said, apologizing unnecessarily for the touch of huskiness in her mezzo-soprano.

“Theater audiences are typically elite people, New Yorkers who live nearby,” she said. “There are a lot of people who don’t even know they belong (at Broadway shows.) The same people who go to the movies, we want them to go to the theater to reap the benefits of the power of live theater.”

Rudetsky will join LaChanze on piano during her upcoming Town Hall performance. She'll sing her hits, she said, including "I’m Here" from "The Color Purple" (she won a 2003 Tony playing the role Whoopi Goldberg played in the 1985 movie); "Waiting for Life to Begin" from "Once On This Island," "Be A Lion" from "The Wiz" and "Father Time" from "Kimberly Akimbo.”

LaChanze said this is the first time in 31 years she hasn’t been acting in a Broadway show.

“I still will be acting but I am just too busy this season,” she said.

The performer, who learned the producing side of the business from her mentor, David Stone, working remotely during COVID-19, is helping to produce three new shows, including “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding.”

LaChanze, Creole for “one who is charmed,” is often described as charming, gracious and stylish.

“The deepest satisfaction to me is to hear people laugh and enjoy a performance,” she said. “Whether I’m producing in it or starring in it, theater is my first love so this is where I will always be.”

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Disney muse, 'Color Purple,' actress LaChanze performs on Cape Cod