Chani Wereley
Chani Wereley
 

hey. welcome.

If you’re here, that means you want to know a little about me.

My name is Chani Wereley! I am a queer artist human born and raised in Washington, D.C., and my pronouns are she/they.

I went to college for aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan! While I was there, I did a production of Rent with MUSKET, and that was the beginning of the end of my rocket scientist career. I transferred to Catholic University, where I received my BM in Musical Theatre, and the rest is history.

I have two cats I accidentally named after a TikTok trend. (Emma + Cleo!)

I have had the chance to work alongside incredible humans on new works, old classics, and everything in between. I am incredibly lucky.

Last March, I had the pleasure of interviewing with Thomas Floyd of The Washington Post for a feature in their weekend cover story on Sondheim and his legacy!

I was interviewed alongside Montego Glover, John Kalbfleisch, Ethan Heard, John Weidman, and Thomas Kail. Truly incredible company.

I’m a native Washingtonian, so being quoted in the Post was VERY COOL!

“The 2018 Catholic University graduate admits that she was embarrassingly unfamiliar with Sondheim until she went to college, became a musical theater major and did a deep dive into his songbook. Now, as the only actor appearing in all three of Signature’s Sondheim shows this season, the performer finds herself enrolled in a crash course in Sondheim.”
— Thomas Floyd, The Washington Post
“It’s that really beautiful symphonic combination of lyrics and music that come together to tweak you here [gestures toward her head] and also tweak you right here [gestures toward her heart]. I think as long as his shows are being produced, people will see them.”
— Me, in the Washington Post!! If you can believe!!

currently

Little Shop of Horrors at Ford’s Theatre as Audrey.

Little Shop of Horrors is a non-stop blast, sci-fi horror comedy, love story and doo-wop and rock musical that has become one of the most treasured pieces of American musical theatre.

With music by Alan Menken and lyrics and book by Howard Ashman, Little Shop pays homage to doo-wop and Motown recordings. The story follows a luckless florist shop worker, Seymour, who raises a wisecracking carnivorous plant – Audrey II – that must feed on human blood. He delights in the fame and fortune that his ever-growing plant attracts, while trying to show his co-worker Audrey that she is the girl of his dreams.

As Seymour discovers Audrey II’s out-of-this-world origins and intent toward world domination, he learns the lesson: “Don’t feed the plants!”

“Wereley is riveting when she sings, her voice full and rich, and she’s completely persuasive as someone with poignantly, exactingly small dreams.”
— Washington Post
“Chani Wereley shows spunk and smarts as Audrey and earns well-deserved ovations for her clear and lovely ballads.”
— Broadway World
“Wereley illuminates Audrey’s soft heart and hard edges eloquently in her yearning “Somewhere That’s Green,” and delivers consistently in her approach to both the score and the comedy. She captures Audrey’s poignant duality, written into the music, as an also meek, insecure victim of abuse incongruously possessed of a powerhouse singing voice that reveals the monumental strength she truly contains.”
— Metro Weekly

 recently

The Season of Sondheim at Signature Theatre

Pacific Overtures as Madam, Thief, French Admiral, and several others. Sweeney Todd as the Birdseller and the Mrs. Lovett understudy. Into the Woods as Lucinda and the Cinderella understudy.

Photo by Daniel Rader

“Chani Wereley, who was so vibrant in last summer’s “A.D. 16” at Olney Theatre Center, here plays to enjoyable effect the Madam who welcomes foreigners to the inexperienced courtesans of her Kanagawa brothel.”
— Peter Marks, Washington Post
“Chani Wereley’s voice particularly shines here, her belted notes knocking the wind out of the audience with the force of a thunderous hurricane.”
— Hailey Wharram, Georgetown Voice
“The arrival of Perry’s ships is described in song as “Four Black Dragons” by both a local fisherman on Oshima spreading nets on the beach... and a local thief in Uraga as she is actively robbing priests (a consistently glorious Chani Wereley).”
— P. Kubicks, Stage and Cinema

A stunning exploration of tradition and transformation based on historical events.

In 1853, after 200 years of stability, Japan faces an American expedition determined to open the “floating kingdom” to trade. The isolationist island’s reckoning with the unwelcome western influence is brilliantly illuminated through a kaleidoscope of stories about sailors, samurai, “someone in a tree” and two friends who choose radically different paths.

This innovative epic of East meets West is one of Sondheim’s most ambitious and rarely produced musicals.

 
 
 
 

 

next up

The Last Five Years at Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival