Hinton Battle, 67, three-time Tony winning actor

[David Samuel Barr]

https://www.broadway.com/buzz/203727/hinton-battle-three-time-tony-award-winner-and-original-scarecrow-in-the-wiz-dies-at-67/
Hinton Battle, Three-Time Tony Award Winner and Original Scarecrow in
The Wiz, Dies at 67
OBIT
by Darryn King • Jan 30, 2024

Hinton Battle, the three-time Tony Award-winning singer, dancer,
choreographer, producer and director, who
fortuitously landed the role of the Scarecrow in the original production
of The Wiz, died on January 29. No
reason was given for the death, which was confirmed by his friend Debbie
Allen. He was 67.

The son of a U.S. army officer, Battle was born on November 29, 1956 in
a military community in Neubrücke,
Hoppstädten-Weiersbach, West Germany, and was raised in Washington, D.C.
and New York City. A lover of movie
musicals as a child, he received a scholarship to The School of American
Ballet, studying under George
Balanchine.

Battle was just 15 when he made his Broadway debut in The Wiz, having
landed the role of the Scarecrow quite
unexpectedly. “While the show was on a promotional tour—before it
actually hit Broadway—one of the leads left
abruptly during intermission and I was called out of the chorus and cast
as the Scarecrow for the second act,”
he told The Hype Magazine in 2014. “I had no idea what to do, but I knew
I could dance. So Stephanie Mills, who
was playing Dorothy, said to me, ‘When I pull your straw, that’s when
you have a line.’ So every time Stephanie
would pull my straw, I would jump in the air, do a split and a pirouette
turn, and say whatever came out of my
mouth! Being that I was the Scarecrow who had no brain, it worked and
the crowd loved it.” The next day, Battle
was offered the role full-time.

Battle went on to Tony Award-winning roles in Sophisticated Ladies, The
Tap Dance Kid and Miss Saigon, as well
as roles in Fosse’s Dancin’, Dreamgirls (which led to a cameo in the
movie), Chicago (as Billy Flynn) and
Ragtime.

As a choreographer, Battle’s credits include ballets for Baltimore
School of the Arts, Washington Reflections
Dance Company, Jones Haywood School of Dance and Philadanco. He also
choreographed Idlewild (2006), a musical
starring André 3000 and Big Boi of the hip hop duo Outkast, and Evil
Dead the Musical off-Broadway.

In 2001, Battle starred in the “Once More With Feeling” musical episode
of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Sweet
the jazz demon. He co-founded the Hinton Battle Dance Academy (HBDA)
with Yoshimoto Kogyo in 2017.

“Today I honor Hinton Battle, my dear friend who left us to dance and
sing in God’s Ensemble last night,” Allen
wrote on X. “He fought this battle to live and be creative impacting
audiences and young people across the
globe. Let us forever speak his name.”

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