Broadway in Tucson brings historic 'My Fair Lady' to Centennial Hall

Back when she started her Broadway journey four years ago, Shereen Ahmed remembers looking out into the audience and seeing women in hijabs sitting among the tried-and-true historically white Broadway audiences.

For the first time in probably forever, women of Arab descent were seeing themselves in a space they never imagined would ever feel accepting: a theater.

“It is amazing to look out and see my people out there in a space that before they didn’t necessarily feel invited as part of this world,” said the 28-year-old Ahmed, the first Arab-American — and first woman of color — to be cast in the role of Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady.” “A golden age, iconic musical is an entirely different world for me and for them, as well. It’s really beautiful, and I think just having representation on stage just expands the power of the story because more people see themselves in the story.”

Ahmed, who understudied Eliza in her 2018 Broadway debut, landed the role in the production’s tour that comes to Centennial Hall with Broadway in Tucson Jan. 5-9. It is the first time in the 65 years since “My Fair Lady” premiered on Broadway that a woman of color has played the cockney flower girl.

“Talk about pressure, right?” Ahmed said in an early December interview. “Having to represent an entire community of people who have never been represented … was crippling in a way. … I was getting letters from women and men from all over the world saying, ‘I see myself in you. I see the opportunity now.’ And I realized it’s actually not about me. It’s about the door (being) finally open, and I feel a great responsibility to my community to represent them.”

Just how Ahmed ended up on stage is a story worthy of Hollywood legend.

“‘My Fair Lady’ has been part of my life since I was a kid,” she recalled. “I watched the classic (1964) film with Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. That was one of my first introductions to musical theater, and I was enthralled.”

So much so that she started doing community theater and participated in musical theater as a teen. But when it came time to decide a major in college, Ahmed took the safe road: criminal justice with an emphasis on social justice. She took dance, voice and acting classes on the side, convinced that performing was not altogether out of her realm of possibilities.

Two years after she graduated from Towson University in 2015, Ahmed decided to give Broadway a shot. She moved to New York City and two weeks later found herself in an open audition for the ensemble cast of the Lincoln Center revival of “My Fair Lady.”

She landed the role and within a year was understudying Eliza.

“I was doing someone else’s show, someone else’s show that was absolutely beautiful, but I had to figure out what my show was,” she said.

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In early 2020, before COVID was a thing, she was cast as Eliza in the tour, which was initially set to come to Tucson last February.

“Stepping into the role for the tour part of my journey began the third time of figuring out my place in it and what I wanted to bring to the role,” Ahmed said.

When the tour was put on pause during the pandemic, Ahmed had plenty of time to figure out her place as Eliza, the street-smart waif who turns to Professor Henry Higgins to help make her into a proper lady.

The cast and crew restarted the show in September. Ahmed said the show is better for the time off.

“We’ve all changed; we’ve all been through the trauma of 2020 and 2021 and trying to figure out what we can bring to audiences now,” she explained. “Our audiences have changed, as well. It’s new and it’s different, and I think it’s pertinent to what’s happening in the world now.”

“My Fair Lady” is filled with iconic tunes, including the signature “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly,” “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face” and the enunciation ditty “Rain in Spain,” which Ahmed confessed was her favorite moment in the play.

“That’s the moment I feel the audience is really cheering for Eliza and cheering for her new superpower, her voice,” she said. “That whole movement from ‘Rain in Spain’ and ‘Dance All Night’ is so stunning and so beautiful, and I get to go on this journey of experiencing my new voice and the power of that.”

In a way, it’s also the audience cheering for Ahmed, the actress who is opening doors for performers of color in a role that its creators, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, never specifically defined as “white.”

“So that is so freeing for me. … I feel free to create the Eliza that I believe is worthy of her,” said Ahmed, adding that since the pandemic and the worldwide social justice protests of summer 2020, the performing arts have put an emphasis on art reflecting the communities they serve.

“It’s things like this, being able to expand these stories in a way that audiences feel that they are reflected and in turn invited into the theater,” she said. “It is really amazing to look out and see a family of Muslims. A woman in a hijab coming to see ‘My Fair Lady.’ I’ve never experienced that before, and I think it’s beautiful.

“To have all these different voices now being part of the conversation, it makes art art.”