A bright new star raced across the Broadway sky Thursday night.Her name’s Heather Headley, and, as the title character in Disney’s “Aida,” she is winning raves from critics — even the ones who had little use for the show itself.
“Pretty much everything that’s right about ‘Aida’… can be summed up in two words: Heather Headley,” wrote Ben Brantley in the New York Times.
At the gala opening Thursday night, Headley expressed relief that the curtain had finally gone up on “Aida.”
“Now all the creative people can go away and leave this gem with us,” she said.
Headley has been with “Aida” for almost three years. She starred in the disastrous out-of-town tryout in Atlanta in 1998, after which Disney fired nearly everyone connected with the show.
She also struggled through a rocky tryout last December in Chicago. At the first preview, a tomb carrying her and co-star Adam Pascal crashed 10 feet to the stage floor.
Both performers sustained minor injuries. But through it all, Headley never lost faith in the show.
“What kept me going,” she told The Post recently, “was my love of this character. Aida is a great role.”
Headley, 25, was born in Trinidad, where she made her professional singing debut at the age of 2 on a local radio station.
She studied opera at Northwestern University, but left after three years when she landed a job as Audra McDonald’s understudy in the Toronto production of “Ragtime.”
She also originated the role of Nala in Disney’s hugely successful “The Lion King.”— Michael Riedel