North Carolina A&T State University alumna NaTasha Yvette Williams’ principle role in this year’s Tony Award winner for best revival, “Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess,” has been a full circle moment for her.

“The first show I got to see after moving to New York was “Ragtime” starring Audra McDonald,” Williams said. “She’s great.”

Williams is starring as “Mariah” alongside, the Tony Award winning actress, McDonald and Tony Award nominees, Norm Lewis and David Alan Grier.

"Working with all these icons and giants in theater, I am pushed and pulled in different directions,” she said. “I’m learning how to be a better actress.”

It’s been 20 years since Williams graduated from N.C. A&T and her path to Broadway’s bright lights has been a marathon, not a sprint.

“After A&T, I went to grad school at Michigan State until 1995 then I moved back home to teach high school,” Williams said.

Williams, a native of Fayetteville, N.C., taught Algebra I, drama, SAT prep, chorus and forensics (speech and debate) for one year before moving to New York to pursue her dream of stardom.

“Back in those times, they put a lot of stuff on first year teachers and because I had training in a lot of areas, they just put a lot on me,” Williams said.

“I left almost immediately after the school year was over.”

Williams moved in with her aunt in Port Chester, just outside New York City, and immediately started the process of auditioning for stage plays.

“I was supposed to sleep and unpack but I went out on my second day there and I booked a job in an all-black “Godspell,” she said. “It was non-paying but I booked it.”

With a fire delaying the play’s opening and Williams’ desire to live in the city, she left the play to work for a newspaper, The New York Christian Times. She moved to Brooklyn and took a series of non-paying acting jobs until she left for Akron, Ohio where she did two shows at the Carousel Dinner Theatre.

“It’s closed now, but at that time, it was the largest dinner theater in the country. After that I started booking bigger jobs,” Williams said.

Since Akron, she has been a featured singer with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Naples Philharmonic, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Williams has also toured with “The Goodbye Girl,” “Parade,” “Cinderella,” “Seussical the Musical,” “All Shook Up” and “Xanadu.” Regionally, she has been featured as Velma and Mabel in “Crowns” at the Arkansas Repertory Theater and Arena Stage. She has also played MoterMouth Maybelle in “Hairspray” at the Papermill Playhouse and Mahalia in “Mahalia at the Cleveland Playhouse.

All these opportunities – in one way or another – Williams credits to the training and experience she got as an undergraduate student at A&T.

“My time there was exquisite for me because one of the main things I was taught was about discipline and respect for the craft,” she said. “I learned so much. Your talent is fine but a lot of times, your talent is not what gets you the gig,” she said. “A&T prepared me in a mature way to handle the business and to be prepared and to be good enough to work.”

At A&T, Williams majored in speech communications and theater arts with a concentration in acting.

“I actually started out as a math major but I spent so much time in the theater, I ended up majoring in theater and minoring in math,” she said.

While learning her craft in the theater at A&T, Williams said she learned valuable lessons she didn’t learn in graduate school.

“As a freshman, you weren’t allowed on the main stage. It taught you that there is a process to building what it is that you’re implanting in yourself so that you can give of yourself when you’re performing,” she said.

“Traditionally, that’s not innate in performers. You just want to be seen, to be out front. At A&T, we had to wait and observe and appreciate other people’s talents. ”

Williams says she feel blessed to have been able to not only learn about her craft, but to practice it at A&T.

“I have been able to secure a couple of roles based on what I’ve learned there,” she said.

Prior to her current role in “Porgy and Bess,” Williams spent a year starring as “Sophia” in “The Color Purple” on Broadway.

“I chased that show all around the country,” she said with a chuckle.

“Before shows come to Broadway, they start somewhere else. This one was in Atlanta. I was in a show in Rhode Island and when it ended, I flew down to Atlanta to see the show just to do research.”

The first time she auditioned, she didn’t get the part. The second time, she was on hold for a chorus part but she didn’t get it. Her third audition proved to be a charm.

“The second year, the original “Sophia” was going to go on tour with the show so they needed another Sophia – I never saw myself as a principle performer,” she said. “I thought I was auditioning to be the gospel singer on the tour.”

Williams booked the “All Shook Up” tour and had traveled to Milwaukee, Wis. with the cast. She got a call from her agent about the audition that she couldn’t pass up for a play she was destined to be in.

“It was a whirlwind that day. I couldn’t get a direct flight out of Milwaukee so I had to drive an hour and a half to Chicago,” she said.

The plan was for her to fly directly into New York, audition and be back for the show in Milwaukee that night but things did not go according to plan.

“It was raining that day and my flight was delayed. I got stuck in New York,” Williams said.

“I was thinking I could make it but the flight was delayed five hours. The show had only been open for four days so they had to do a rehearsal to get my understudy ready. When I got back, they told me I was going to be fined.”

The following week, she got a call from her agent and she was told to sit down.

“I thought she was going to tell me that they were going to fine me $10,000 but, she told me ‘you’ve booked Sophia on Broadway’.”

Williams spent the next year as a principle performer alongside High Point native, Fantasia Barrino.

“We became fast friends for the show. You’re thrust into these instant family relationships when you do these shows,” she said. “I showed her all the places where she could get sweet tea to help give her the connection to home.”

While there was fun with Barrino during the show, Williams learned a lot  from watching all the fanfare around her famous co-star.

“Getting to be around her taught me a lot about being famous,” she said. “I used to say I wanted to be a household name, I don’t want that anymore.”

Being in that particular cast of the play gave Williams an opportunity to perform with members of the original cast and to have somewhat of a changing of the guard with another Aggie.

“After we left, Zonya (Love Johnson) was the next Celie and then they hired Chaka Kahn to be Sophia,” she said.

Johnson is a 2003 graduate of A&T.

“The training and opportunities you get at A&T are tremendous,” Williams said.

Williams has also appeared on gospel singer, Donnie McClurkin’s show on the Trinity Broadcasting Network where she performed an original song.

“I’m just blessed every day and I look forward to the next thing being a greater experience,” she said.

For additional information about NaTasha Yvette Williams and to purchase her music, visit www.natashayvettewilliams.com.