Broadway star and Frost School of Music alum Joshua Henry has hit cultural icon status. On Monday, the 2006 graduate dazzled the glitterati at the Met Gala, one of the world’s most watched celebrity and media events, with an electrifying rendition of the beloved Whitney Houston hit “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” with Henry, in a bright red suit, leading a phalanx of singers and dancers on the grand staircase of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Henry took the stage again after dinner to read an excerpt from Walt Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric,” just before a closing performance by music legend Stevie Nicks.
That show-stopping turn comes as Henry has garnered his fourth Tony Award nomination, for best performance by an actor in a leading role in a musical, as Coalhouse Walker Jr. in the hit revival of “Ragtime,” which has gotten a total of 11 Tony nominations. The Miami-raised theater artist is getting multiple mid-show standing ovations and critical raves for a performance that The New York Times said “seems to emanate from his very core.” He has performed songs from “Ragtime” on ABC’s “The View” and at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade last November.
Henry’s “Ragtime” performance follows multiple starring turns in major Broadway shows, including “Carousel,” “American Idiot,” “The Scottsboro Boys,” and “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess,” as well as roles in “Waitress,” “Bring it On: The Musical,” “Shuffle Along,” and the debut production of “In the Heights.” For his leading role in the 2022 Broadway revival of “Into The Woods” he shared in the GRAMMY for the cast recording.
Henry often credits the Frost School and the University of Miami and has returned multiple times to receive awards and give talks and workshops, inspiring the students who come after him. He was a star performer in the April 8, 2025, Centennial Celebration Concert commemorating the 100th birthday of the Frost School and the University of Miami, when he wowed a crowd packing Lakeside Patio on the Coral Gables Campus, singing “The Room Where it Happens” from “Hamilton,” another of his starring roles.
The 41-year-old actor and singer was one of 100 Frost School alumni to receive a Frost School Centennial Medal that day. “To come back now and be honored as one of the centennial medalists is a big full circle moment,” Henry said at the red carpet for the concert. “To sing that song, to say hey, we’re so blessed to be here, is incredible.” He proudly shared a video of himself with his centennial medal on social media, saying, “I’ve got chills,” while also joking that “I’m at a loss for words because I can remember what it was like to struggle and FAIL music theory.”
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Henry met his wife, fellow University of Miami student Cathryn Stringer, with whom he has three children, during his senior year at the Frost School. “We lived across the hall from each other,” he told Broadway.com in 2018. “We met at the elevator! I remember when she walked off the elevator. She’s got this beautiful red hair. She smiled at me, and I was like, ‘Oh, snap!’”
In 2018 Henry returned to receive the Frost School of Music Distinguished Alumnus Award at Maurice Gusman Concert Hall.
“I thank God for placing me here at this school and the many things that had to go right for me to be here,” Henry said in his acceptance speech, when he also thanked Dean Shelton G. “Shelly” Berg. “He sent me an email saying this was going to happen, and I cried a lot. Because I remember being a freshman here and scheming, dreaming, hoping for the future.”
Henry went on to acknowledge his teachers. “Thank you for seeing something in a raw young man. Thank you for investing in me, believing in me, and pushing me to be my best.” And he urged the students to treasure their time at the Frost School.
“It’s not like this everywhere. I want you to take these moments and hold onto them and breath them in like you’ll never get them again. Because at some point you’ll leave here and it will never be the same. Live in that library. Collaborate with each other. Work as hard as you can. Practice, practice, practice.”
