Obituaries
Watch: Broadway Dims Lights for Kyle Jean-Baptiste
The youngest and first black actor to play Les Miz' Jean Valjean on Broadway fell to his death from a Bed-Stuy fire escape over the weekend.
Family, friends and fans of the late Broadway star Kyle Jean-Baptiste, 21, stood beneath the Imperial Theatre’s bright marquee in Times Square on Tuesday night.
The tight-knit crowd was joined by an outer circle of NYC drama kids and passerby who, although they may not have known Jean-Baptiste personally, had gotten word of his sudden death on Friday night and came to pay their respects.
Low murmurs ran through the crowd — words of regret and disbelief. Young and old alike held up their camera phones, waiting for the clock to strike 10:15 p.m.
When that moment came, the marquee went black. The crowd was silent.
Then, a sudden applause rang out on West 45th Street. And an encore. And another. And another.
“It’s too real,” said one young woman in the crowd, once the marquee’s bulbs had blinked back on. “It hits too close to home.”
“It is what it is,” said a young man standing near her. “We have to keep going.”
Jean-Baptiste’s LaGuardia High School classmates and “Les Miserables” castmates were hesitant to speak to journalists who hovered at the edge of the crowd Tuesday night. They’d been swarmed by press the day before, too, at a memorial for Jean-Baptiste in Central Park. Those who were asked to be interviewed politely declined.
Broadway dimming ceremonies are normally reserved for veteran actors who’ve spent long careers onstage; however, the Broadway League made an exception for Jean-Baptiste this week.
Charlotte St. Martin, league president, explained the decision to BroadwayWorld.com.
“He was a rising star who graced our stage for too short a time,” she said, “but his historic achievements and what he represents for the future will be remembered and honored when the Imperial Theatre dims its lights on Tuesday evening following the show.”
On July 23, 2015, Jean-Baptiste became the first black actor, and the youngest actor ever, to star in the Broadway production of Les Miz as lead character Jean Valjean.
“I was so proud of him,” said Soara-Joye Ross, 37, an established NYC singer and actress who hung back in the crowd on Tuesday night. “I posted on my Facebook and I said, ‘Congratulations, Kyle.’ He’s not even a friend of mine. But I was so proud of him.”
“He was phenomenal,” she added. “It was effortless, his Valjean. His ‘Bring Him Home’ was effortless.”
On the wall behind Ross, directly across from the Imperial, a giant banner advertised a new Broadway show called “The Color Purple” — the same show in which Jean-Baptiste would reportedly have starred, alongside Jennifer Hudson, later this year.
“The first thing that came to my mind [when he died] was ’a dream deferred,’” Ross said. ”But he did live his dream. He was Jean Valjean.”
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