Howard University is playing its part in bringing TLC classics like “Creep,” “No Scrubs,” “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg,” “Unpretty” and of course “Waterfalls” to the theater world with the hit new production “CrazySexyCool: The TLC Musical.” 

“CrazySexyCool” features key support from a trio of Howard alumni in the cast: Mikari Tarpley (BFA’26), Kalen Robinson (BFA’20), and Trenton McKenzie Beavers (BFA’23), all Georgia natives. 

Performing lead roles in the jukebox musical are Holli’ Gabrielle Conway (Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins), Jade Milan (Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes), and Stoney B. Woods (Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas). Kwame Kwai-Armah directs and Chloe O. Davis choreographs. The Broadway-aimed show is at Arena Stage now through Aug. 9. 

The  “CrazySexyCool” musical looks behind the scenes at the groundbreaking, Grammy-winning trio known for huge hits, oversized clothing, female empowerment messaging, inner group turmoil, tragedy and more.  The group continues performing today as a duo after Lopes’ death in 2002. 

Tarpley and Beavers are making their Arena Stage debut in “CrazySexyCool”; Robinson performed in “Chez Joey” earlier in the renowned theater’s season. 

While they’re too young to have experienced TLC fully in real time, they remember older relatives embracing the trailblazing group. They love working in a production that celebrates their Atlanta-area upbringings while also shining in a predominately Black space as they did during their Howard years of intense musical theater training. 

Mikari Tarpley 

(Swing/understudy for the role of Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins/“CrazySexyCool: The TLC Musical”) 

From the moment Mikari Tarpley began her musical theater studies at Howard, she hit the ground running, and it has served her well. A mere month after graduating in May, Tarpley was on stage in “CrazySexyCool.” Essential to that are two words: “Trust Howard.” 

Those are words Tarpley would offer any Howard student currently enrolled in the College of Fine Arts (COFA) pondering how to break through in the competitive theater world. 

“I know this sounds cliche, but don’t give up. Keep the faith. What I want anyone to know who has stepped foot on Howard is that you were brought to Howard for a reason. You didn’t go to that school because it just happened or it was a coincidence. All the experience you’re getting from Howard is setting you up for plenty of opportunities. You’re meeting people who could be your future co-stars, your future director, choreographer, or creative team member. There are so many possibilities just from going to Howard.” 

Tarpley landed at Howard after eliminating several other schools from her list that included Pace University and New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. None of them felt like the right fit for her. While visiting Howard during Springfest 2022, Tarpley sat in on the Area Lab, where musical theater students gather in the Ira Aldridge Theatre and are given additional opportunities to perform in front of voice, acting, and dance faculty and receive feedback, notes, and training. 

“I got to see the current classes get to work and hear what the teachers had to say, and I appreciated the fact they welcomed me. It spoke to me,” she said. “I immediately got the feel of campus and was like ‘This is family here, this is about community.’ And tThat was just so enticing. I knew from that moment I wanted to go to Howard.” 

Discipline is Key 

Tarpley learned a new level of discipline with her Howard training that included intense dance class rehearsals at 8 a.m. several days a week. She said her dance instructor at the time, Whitney Leigh Brown, was strict but necessarily so. She instilled in Tarpley the concept that on time was late, early was on time, and late was unacceptable. 

“That was lesson number one,” Tarpley recalled. “I learned so many different things from my teachers about how to represent yourself, especially as a Black person, in the space. Often, we are the minorities in audition rooms and sometimes productions as well. So, I think from my COFA experience, I really learned how to take up space and be bold as a Black person and as a Black artist. It really worked out well with ‘CrazySexyCool’” 

Tarpley called “CrazySexyCool” a unique room in that it’s predominately Black, “not very common in this theater industry,” but something she also got to experience at Howard. 

“To be in a room outside of Howard at Arena Stage, which isn’t a Black institution, and for us to come into the space as Black artists and be so authentically ourselves is so inspiring,” she added. “It gives me a lot of hope for the future of theater. A show like this is revolutionary. I don’t think there’s anything like ‘CrazySexyCool’ right now.” 

Trenton McKenzie Beavers 

(Tommy/Ensemble/“CrazySexyCool: The TLC Musical”) 

The future of theater and the Black excellence found within is in safe hands, Trenton McKenzie Beavers said. He has seen it daily for months during rehearsals and performances of “CrazySexyCool,” and long before then. 

“I’ve always felt this,” said Beavers, “especially coming from Howard and coming from Atlanta. I’ve been surrounded by a lot of theater artists who take this very seriously and understand the shoulders on which we stand.” 

He pointed to Dean Emeritus Phylicia Rashad (BFA’ 70) as an example of the excellence surrounding him, along with encountering her sister Debbie Allen (BFA’72, DHL’93) at a performance of “CrazySexyCool.”   

Allen not only caught a performance but met the cast. The show’s dance captain was one of her former students. 

“Having all these people come through and see we are carrying the baton, carrying the torch from the foundation they laid, is very comforting and very affirming,” said Beavers. “We are doing what most of us feel we are called to do and pushing the envelope even further.” 

Beavers credited his Howard professors with getting him to this point with their hands-on personal approach in their teaching styles. 

“They wanted to cultivate us as individual artists, not just working cogs in the theater industry. A good portion of them are also working artists themselves so they were able to give tidbits on how they were able to find their own methods of maneuvering through the industry as well as our own methods that work best for us. Many of them are mentors to me to this day who have come to see my projects and performances.” 

More Than Just a Performer 

Beavers’ Howard training helped him realize he is an artist first, not a performer.  He learned how to cultivate that artistic voice, how he wanted to show up in spaces, and what types of stories he needed to tell, all eye-opening to him. 

Equally memorable were a couple of stand-out moments during Beavers’ undergraduate years. He and his classmates produced a show on their own in which they handled everything from funding to costumes to choreography. 

“It showed me how impactful we could be as individuals and how impactful we could be together,” said Beavers. “To have that amount of structure and drive and planning at such a relatively young age was very informative in seeing how I could maneuver in this industry as an individual and ultimately as a business.” 

Just as influential was his senior showcase in New York City at the former Faison Firehouse Theater (now the National Action Network’s House of Justice Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Workshop), where he met Broadway legend and Howard alum George Faison. Being in Harlem, New York, at the famous theater helped inform Beavers of who he is and where he was going. 

“It really solidified this is something I’m capable of doing, something I love, something I take seriously. Meeting George Faison and the inspiration he gave us really fed the fire I needed so that when I graduated, I’d know exactly what I wanted to do and exactly how I wanted to do it.” 

Beavers enrolled at Howard knowing he wanted to study the arts in a Black-centric space through an African American lens, especially coming from Atlanta where it was mostly all he knew. While researching colleges, he chose Howard because at the time it was the only HBCU offering a BFA in musical theater.  

“That was a major selling point for me. I knew I wanted to do storytelling through the stage, not just through acting but through music, through dance. When I realized that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, Howard was the perfect step for that.” 

Kalen Robinson  

(Swing/“CrazySexyCool: The TLC Musical”) 

Higher learning at Howard was not a part of Kalen Robinson’s plans when she weighed her collegiate options. 

Robinson auditioned for several schools and had a couple of stipulations –– seeking a school that offered a BFA in musical theater, and one where she could be a part of a desired sorority. The only acceptance she received was from Howard, but she wasn’t sure how deep the university’s musical theater program was. She thought the school better served actors.  

“I wasn’t checking for Howard,” said Robinson. But she visited the campus for Admitted Students Day and everything changed. The musical theater students at the time, who’d recently staged “Sarafina!,” performed an excerpt and Robinson was sold on Howard.  

“I said ‘Oh my God, they are so good I have to go here.’ And from then on, I knew I was going to Howard.” 

Robinson enrolled in 2016, and by the time she graduated in 2020, she was one to watch ion Washington, D.C.’s competitive theater scene, thanks to the fierce training received at Howard. By her junior year, she booked her first two professional jobs, “Grease” at Toby’s Dinner Theatre in Columbia, Maryland, and “Spring Awakening” at Round House Theatre in Bethesda, Maryland. 

Howard training in tow, Robinson said “You really understand self-discipline and how to maintain on your own. You understand how to work hard and craft characters, how to pace yourself, how to be professional and work hard with people that you care about that are also your peers. You walk in with all of those tools. And there’s never a question of your Blackness. That’s just something that was nurtured and established.” 

Despite being fully prepared by her collegiate training, Robinson was full of nerves as she ventured onto the professional stages at Toby’s Dinner Theatre and Round House Theatre her junior year in light of a challenge she faced. She was struggling with vocal issues that required medical attention, leading to her receiving an incomplete in classes requiring her to sing. The issues loomed as she was facing down the two gigs, but Howard faculty members stood up for her. 

“My professors banded together to help prepare me. ‘OK if you want to do this job, here is how we are going to prepare you so you can do this healthily and sustain it,” she said. “I remember being very supported by the faculty.” 

Faculty conditioned Robinson so well that once she was fully ingrained on the theater scene, it was almost easier than Howard where “we had such a rigorous schedule and high standards to meet.” 

Networking Across, Not Up 

Robinson had no idea the region’s theater scene was as vast and amazing as it is, and the connections she made at Howard helped her navigate, leading to her making connections, securing auditions, and meeting different casting directors. 

“The biggest thing they taught us freshman year was that it wasn’t just about networking up. It was about networking across. We did so much collaborative work while at Howard with people who were in class with me – theater majors, acting majors, music majors, dance majors of all levels, and we created things together. To this day I work with those people in other rooms. That networking across and not just up is really what I believe will blow a lot of our careers up.” 

“CrazySexyCool” is a significant part of her progression. Robinson noted parallels between the bold, apologetic women of TLC and Black women at Howard. 

“Howard University is made up of Black women and we have those same qualities. You’re going to see a lot of swag, a lot of women who wear who they are boldly and proudly and on the outside. You’re going to see trendsetters. You’re going to see people advocating. The same passion that TLC has is the same passion that lives in the Howard Black woman. We don’t shy away from what we want. We don’t shy away from our goals and dreams. And if we have to shake some things up to get there, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.” 

Edwin Brown (BFA’13), a professor of theater arts at the university’s Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts, said when it comes to musical theater graduates like the ones featured in “CrazySexyCool,” the school does something with students that can’t be faked, and that’s build the artist from the inside out. 

“Students develop an incredible sense of self from our intense training,” said Brown, “and that foundation is exactly what sustains you to build a career in a ruthless entertainment industry. So, when I see our graduates commanding a stage like Arena Stage in ‘CrazySexyCool: The TLC Musical,’ I am not surprised. I am proud.” 

Added Brown: “That Bison confidence to walk into any professional room and own it is forged in our studios. Students leave knowing how to command presence and offer something meaningful to say regardless of classical text, modern drama, or original work. What my colleagues and I do is part of a rich legacy, and I do not take it lightly. We get to nurture the next generation of cultural ambassadors who deepen their reverence for the craft and honor our Black aesthetic and traditions. Bison are charting new visions of Black excellence across all artistic disciplines. They are not just participating in American culture. They are reshaping it.” 

All remaining performances of “CrazySexyCool: The TLC Musical” are sold out; a limited number of standing room tickets are available two hours before the performance start time in person at the box office only.