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The Nickelodeon actress will take on the role from September
LIKE MANY girls, actress and singer Keke Palmer grew up dreaming of when and how she would meet a prince who would whisk her away to a life of ‘happily ever after’.
In her case, it's going to happen for real- eight shows a week on New York's Broadway.
Palmer said she'll be stepping into the title role in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella starting Sept 9 at the Broadway Theatre, New York.
The actress, real name Lauren Keyana Palmer, will become the first black person to play the part on Broadway.
"It's honestly one of those things that I can't believe is really happening," Palmer told Associated Press by phone Friday from her Los Angeles home.
"I'm very excited. Very excited and nervous as well - a bunch of feelings all at once."
Palmer, 20, who will be making her professional stage debut, will rely on a host of skills she's developed from film - including Barbershop 2: Back in Business and Akeelah and the Bee.
The shows producer, Robyn Goodman, said: "She acts beautifully, she dances, she sings - she's an amazing young woman.
"I think she's going to be just so lovely."
According to The Huffington Post, one of Palmer's heroines growing up was the singer and actress Brandy Norwood, who played Cinderella in a 1997 television movie opposite Whitney Houston.
"I feel like the reason I'm able to do this is definitely because Brandy did it on TV," Palmer said. "In me doing this, it shows everybody that everything is possible."
MUSICAL: Brandy starred alongside Whitney Houston in a television movie of Cinderella
The producers of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella have always been “colourblind” about casting the show.
"We've always just cast the best people for the parts. Sometimes they're African-American, sometimes they're Latino, sometimes Asian-American," Tony Award-winning producer Goodman said.