Priscilla Lopez

Broadway history was cemented the moment Priscilla Lopez stepped forward as Diana Morales in "A Chorus Line" to belt out "What I Did for Love" and recount the crushing artistic cruelty of Mr. Karp in "Nothing." The character was based directly on Lopez's own life growing up in the Bronx, attending the High School of Performing Arts, and failing to feel like an ice cream cone or a table. That legendary performance earned her a Tony nomination, paved the way for an eventual Tony win in "A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine," and etched her into the musical theater pantheon forever.

With a resume so profoundly tied to Broadway lore—where Jewish composers, lyricists, producers, and choreographers are practically the wallpaper—one might wonder if a drop of Jewish heritage found its way onto her family tree. Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban wrote her signature tunes, and Michael Bennett staged her heartbreak, but Lopez herself is of entirely Puerto Rican descent, raised Catholic in Manhattan and the Bronx.

She did, however, eventually play Berthe in the 2014 Broadway revival of "Pippin" (music by Stephen Schwartz, of course), dangling on a trapeze and demanding that audiences seize the day. So while she may not have any Jewish lineage or identity to speak of, anyone who helped build the bedrock of modern American musical theater gets our deepest theatrical respect, even if her Jew Score feels, well, like "Nothing."