Singer, Actress, Black Music Ambassador

She persisted with her love of performing music through working many different jobs until she could support herself financially by being a full-time, versatile theater performer.

FAMILY BACKGROUND

JH was raised by her grandparents in a city. With them, she was always very active in her church, beginning by singing with the children’s choir, where she had a solo at age 3. Later JH taught Sunday school and within the church’s adult choir, she rose to soloist and co-director. She traveled with the church to Africa half a dozen times serving as a missionary. 

EDUCATION

Following high school graduation (having served as class vice president), JH enrolled in a few theater courses at a local university but discovered she learned better “on the job.” 

Said JH: “Shyness was never my problem. I was the class clown and a big ham. I’ve never taken a singing or acting lesson. It just comes naturally.”

DIFFERENT JOBS BEFORE BEING ABLE TO SUPPORT HER CAREER INTEREST

While JH loved to perform – as a singer and actress – she was not able to pay her bills solely by her artistic skills, until she was 34 years old. So, between high school graduation and her first fine arts earnings sufficient to support herself, JH worked:

• At restaurants – food server and cash register
• In retail – clothing store sales
• For an insurance company – processing claims from a desk with a computer
• At a hospital – cafeteria food service preparation

VOICE AND ENTHUSIASM EARN MANY PAYING THEATER OPPORTUNITIES

In addition to her critically acclaimed abilities as a singer, JH paid close attention to how actresses prepared for and performed their roles as lead or supporting. VH won her first theater role – a part calling for both singing and acting – at age 23. At the bottom of her first audition form, she wrote: “I am fierce!” meaning she was determined to learn the part well and bring her best performance to every show. 

According to theater critics, JH “shined in dozens of roles at Philadelphia’s Walnut Street, Arden and Freedom Theaters plus other playhouses in Philadelphia, Delaware and around the country. She sang with Patti LaBelle, toured Europe with the Harlem Gospel Choir and brought police detective Caroline Massey to life in six episodes of the TV show The Wire from 2004-2006. 

JH also played a courtroom guard in a movie and a harassed mother in another movie. She won a Barrymore Award as the leading actress in the musical Caroline, earned parts in TV commercials and industrial films and performed a one-woman show based on family stories about slavery.

“JH filled you with her voice – seemingly effortlessly rising, soaring before opening up and astonishing you with her power and passion.”

She also performed at weddings, funerals, banquets, fund-raisers, reunions, and birthdays. JH mentored countless actors and singers, served on the advisory council of a repertory ensemble and as an expert seamstress, worked with wardrobe departments on several productions.

CAREER SATISFACTION – DOING WHAT YOU LOVE, EARNING MONEY AND HELPING OTHERS

JH continuously promoted the theater at her church and wherever she went. “If you want to get people of color to patronize your theater, you must approach them. You have to send people out to give them a taste of what they’re going to experience.”

Away from the stage footlights and backstage buzz, JH routinely distributed meals, toiletries, clothing, and other items to people on the street, even stopping sometimes as she drove to her own, upcoming theater performance.

Editor – My editing style has evolved over the several years of preparing these career stories; early on, specific identification of people’s names, cities of birth and residence plus schools were not used, to avoid distractions when the purpose of the story was to illustrate common experiences and truths. I haven’t retained the original news article upon which this story is based, so the identity of JH in this story is unknown but from comparing some facts to the internet biography of actress and singer Jennifer Hudson, it doesn’t appear that the JH of this story is Ms. Hudson.