Theatre
Clarke is also noted for her West End theatre work. She has played many roles, including General Cartwright in Guys and Dolls (1996), Joanne Jefferson in Rent at the Shaftesbury Theatre (1998), and Miss Sherman in Fame (1999). She played Rafiki in The Lion King from 2000-2002 at the Lyceum Theatre and in 2004 played the character of Matron Mama Morton in Chicago.
Clarke originated the role of Killer Queen in the Ben Elton/Queen jukebox musical We Will Rock You at the Dominion Theatre alongside Alexander Hanson as Commander Khashoggi, for which she was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Musical. Mazz Murray her understudy, took over the role in 2004 and played the role up until maternity leave in 2010 where Brenda Edwards took over the role.
In 2008, Clarke made her pantomime début in the Hackney Empire's 'Mother Goose'. She starred in Once on This Island in Birmingham at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. She was also set to star in The Vagina Monologues and Once on This Island at the Hackney Empire in 2009. Clarke finished starring in the massively successful hit musical Hairspray when it closed on 28 March 2010 at the Shaftesbury Theatre due to a UK tour. She played the role of Motormouth Maybelle, alongside Phill Jupitus and Brian Conley as Edna Turnblad.
Clarke's vocal talents were heard as Davina the Diva Harp in Jack and the Beanstalk and as Carmina the Camel in Aladdin both at the Hackney Empire. In July 2010, Clarke appeared in a one-off performance at the Hackney Empire called Sounds Like Hackney alongside Clive Rowe. The show featured a wide range of songs spanning many genres.
Clarke made an appearance at Music on the Farm held at Battlers Green Farm in aid of charity singing hits from musicals that she has starred in. Her spot included "When You're Good to Mama" from Chicago, "Big Blonde and Beautiful" from Hairspray, "The Circle of Life" from The Lion King and "Seasons of Love" from Rent.
In October 2010, the Apollo Victoria Theatre, home to the musical Wicked celebrated its 80th anniversary and Clarke lent her vocal talents, appearing as a guest performer alongside other stars such as Wayne Sleep.
2011 saw Clarke take the role of Oda Mae Brown in a musical adaptation of the film Ghost. Beginning previews in March at the Manchester Opera House, the show transferred in June 2011 to the West End at the Piccadilly Theatre replacing Grease. Clarke was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Musical for a second time, losing out on the award to Nigel Harman for his role in Shrek the Musical.
In October 2011, she appeared in a concert of the new musical Soho Cinders at the Queen's Theatre, London. Clarke has also worked as Musical Director on Meridan.
Since finishing in Ghost The Musical upon its closure in 2012, Clarke has appeared in her own one woman cabaret at the St James Theatre.
Read more about this topic: Sharon D. Clarke
Famous quotes containing the word theatre:
“Mankind’s common instinct for reality ... has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism. In heroism, we feel, life’s supreme mystery is hidden. We tolerate no one who has no capacity whatever for it in any direction. On the other hand, no matter what a man’s frailties otherwise may be, if he be willing to risk death, and still more if he suffer it heroically, in the service he has chosen, the fact consecrates him forever.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“People fall out of windows, trees tumble down,
Summer is changed to winter, the young grow old
The air is full of children, statues, roofs
And snow. The theatre is spinning round,
Colliding with deaf-mute churches and optical trains.
The most massive sopranos are singing songs of scales.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Our instructed vagrancy, which has hardly time to linger by the hedgerows, but runs away early to the tropics, and is at home with palms and banyans—which is nourished on books of travel, and stretches the theatre of its imagination to the Zambesi.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)