Before the finale moment in Broadway’s revival of “The Wiz,” the saturated, kaleidoscopic colors of Oz fade to a night sky.

Till now, audience members watching this Saturday night performance in New York City have danced in their seats, mouthed lyrics, talked back, guffawed, gasped and cheered.

Suddenly they’re still.

“Here it comes,” a woman whispers to her friend in the second row of the mezzanine.

When the stage clears, it leaves only Dorothy from Kansas. What most people don’t know in the Marquis Theatre — and in the Richmond area — is that the young woman making her Broadway debut grew up in Chesterfield County.

The iconic role in this cultural touchstone of a musical is played by Midlothian native Nichelle Lewis, a 2017 graduate of Manchester High School.

With the spotlights aimed her way, Lewis sings the Charlie Smalls hit that helped lead her here, “Home” — the one that became the career signature of the original Dorothy, Stephanie Mills. The song Diana Ross made famous in the 1978 movie version of the all-Black musical.

… Living here in this brand-new world
Might be a fantasy.
But it’s taught me to love,
So it’s real, so real to me.
And I’ve learned
That we must look inside our hearts to find
A world so full of love
Like yours, Like mine,
Like Home.

Dorothy clicks her glittery silver heels. She holds the last note and her arms up, triumphant. The applause tumbles toward her. She turns around and walks back toward her Aunt Em’s house, the place where she started.

“That was incredible,” a woman says, wiping away tears.

The next show is tomorrow at 3.

Family members and friends have visited “The Wiz” multiple times.

“This is probably our fifth or sixth,” says Lewis’ aunt Shelly Lewis Gatling, in line for the 8 o’clock show. With the Broadway run winding down in August, Gatling threw out an invite to gauge interest in a trip from the Richmond area.

“And I got a busload of 36,” she says. She entertained them with trivia questions about Lewis during the ride to New York.

Family tonight includes Lewis’ paternal grandmother, Joyce Bassett Lewis. “We’re so proud of her,” she says, marveling at the journey.

Her late son, Matthew, a Chesterfield native and “Star Trek” fan, named his daughter Nichelle after the actress Nichelle Nichols, who broke racial boundaries as Lieutenant Uhura in the iconic television series and its many films.

Nichelle Lewis says she thinks of him and her mother, Katreena, at every show. Her parents are intertwined with the backstory she’s developed for her performance. She pictures them when she holds Dorothy’s locket, conjuring memories.

“Everything we do, or say, or feel, comes from experience,” Lewis says. “So a lot of the things that I try to do with my Dorothy is have everything come from intention and experience. It is a very heavy show for me, even with all of the joy.”

It colors her efforts to inspire the Scarecrow, Tinman and Lion — bringing out their inner strength and confidence while she works to build up her own. There’s grief and longing within the jubilation. For a young woman who struggled with her own confidence growing up, there’s deeper meaning when star Deborah Cox, as Glinda, turns the encouragement back around. She sings “Believe in Yourself” to Lewis before the finale song.

“I felt like I heard God speaking through you the other night,” Lewis says she recently told Cox. “I just felt something filling up my heart. So sometimes I really, really, really do need those moments. And I think Dorothy definitely needs those moments in her adventure as well.”

When she said goodbye to her father, a 10-year-old Lewis says she sensed something was wrong. She and her younger sister were headed to Disney World. Their dad was going into hospice care.

Lewis’ mom hoped the girls’ time away from Midlothian with extended family — and miles away from their father’s failing battle with cancer — would provide some peace.

“I don’t know how long she had planned on keeping us there,” Lewis says. “But it was this random trip to Florida and she was like, ‘We’re going to send you and your sister away and you’re going to have so much fun.”

Lewis knew she might not see him again, she says: “I cried all night about it before I even got the news that he had passed.”

It was her dad’s death 15 years ago, in August 2009, that led to the first time she really sang. Lewis performed “My Help” during his memorial service at Brown Grove Baptist Church in Midlothian. She received guidance from the choir director, Shannon Friend Griffin.

After that experience, Lewis says, “I knew I wanted to sing … And so, I practiced for hours on end.” She believes music was her father’s gift to her.

She thinks back on managing to belt out Mariah Carey’s “Vision of Love” as a young girl, somehow, even with its stratospheric whistle tones. “I can’t even sing that song now,” she says, laughing. “That’s a rough one.”

She recalls the coaching from Griffin, her first and one of her favorite mentors: “And she would just say, ‘You just got to use your core.’”

As part of Manchester High School’s show choir, led by teacher Robyn Kim and choreographer Andy Haines, Lewis traveled to New York City. There, students had the opportunity to sing for Broadway actor David Hibbard as part of a conservatory program called Collaborative Arts Project 21.

Hibbard was impressed enough to keep in touch with Lewis, offering notes about the business and guidance in the arts. Later, when Lewis realized she could attend school for music, her search led her to Molloy University in New York. Hibbard, who worked there, became one of her teachers.

Lewis had known of “The Wiz” as early as she can recall. “I don’t remember when it first entered existence,” she says. “I just remember it always being there.” She knew the characters, and “Ease on Down the Road,” the hit famously sung by Ross and Michael Jackson.

But there was one number that escaped her. A teacher showed her the song, “Home,” and it connected. Lewis recalls thinking: “How did I never hear this? It’s the most beautiful thing.” She researched it to prepare for her senior showcase and hoped to one day sing it professionally.

A year after her graduation, in 2022, producers of “The Wiz” announced that they planned a Broadway revival.

Filling the role of Dorothy wouldn’t come easy.

In Richmond, when Virginia Repertory Theatre tapped Kikau Alvaro to direct its version of “The Wiz” in 2019, he understood the show’s cultural significance — “it’s a celebration of Black culture, of Blackness,” he says.

Alvaro, then associate artistic director at Virginia Rep, had reported on the musical in high school. He’d read the book “How the Wiz Was” by Jeremy Aufderheide. He’d seen the musical repeatedly growing up. His background as a director-choreographer helped, he says, and it was the perfect show to celebrate home, family and the diversity of Richmond.

For many fans of the “super soul musical,” which won seven Tonys, the show arrived during their formative years. It premiered on Broadway a half-century ago, became a movie, and had a short-lived revival in the late ’80s. NBC produced a version that aired live in 2015.

But even Alvaro was unprepared for the history and deep relationships with the show that actors expressed during their auditions.

He too was challenged in finding his Dorothy. “This is a powerhouse role,” he says. Whoever plays Dorothy must be someone the audience can buy as a young person — someone who can go on this journey “from an innocent space.” That’s not to mention the required vocal expertise and effervescence.

“The role isn’t too knowing,” Alvaro says. “She has to see things through fresh eyes every time. And I think that’s a hard thing to find.”

After an exhaustive search, Alvaro found his Dorothy in Mariah Lyttle, a then-recent graduate of Ithaca College. He seems to have made a wise choice. Lyttle now performs in the ensemble of “The Wiz” on Broadway and serves as understudy for Lewis as Dorothy. Another Virginia connection is Newport News native Collin Heyward, a member of the ensemble.

In the summer of 2023, producers of “The Wiz” revival were preparing for a 13-city tour that would lead into their Broadway run. Plans were well underway, but they had no Dorothy.

Two years earlier, Lewis had been signed by The Mine Agency after her graduation from Molloy. Her agent, Ellery Sandhu, says they saw a video of her singing “Home,” and Lewis stood out. “If they ever do a revival of ‘The Wiz,’” Sandhu recalls telling her business partner, Eric, “she needs to be in it.”

Lewis performed in the national tour of “Hairspray” and competed in the Hollywood round of “American Idol.” When plans were coming together for “The Wiz,” she was working on a new musical, “Labelless,” in Cincinnati.

She’d started posting some videos on TikTok, including one where she sings “Home” with a personal message running across the screen.

“A lot of people, while I was growing up, believed me to be this overly confident singer,” she wrote in the caption. “Unfortunately, I was never confident in anything and I’m still working on my confidence.”

She notes some of her personal struggles, including losing her father and several others close to her. She was “tired and numb and trying to find some way to free her soul and survive,” she wrote. “I sang because it made me feel free and happy and I realized when I sang, it sometimes did the same for others.”

Lewis describes struggles with ADHD, anxiety and dyslexia, and getting teased as a young girl for her hair. She recalls big family cookouts getting smaller. Her world was changing — and she knew other people faced such challenges. She made it a mission to encourage others, spread a message of hope and raise awareness about mental health. She’s raising her Micro Mini Bernedoodle, Cleo, to be a Psychiatric Service Animal.

The video she shared found its way to the people casting “The Wiz,” and they asked her to submit a tape. Then Lewis received word that they wanted her to fly from Cincinnati to New York for an in-person audition.

She couldn’t afford it.

But her director in Cincinnati insisted she go. “You have to because you are Dorothy,” Lewis recalls. They pulled together the $800 for the plane ticket and paid her way. She was called back — and this time, the production paid.

In August 2023, “The Wiz” announced that Lewis had been cast from among more than 2,000 submissions.

What makes her special as Dorothy?

“Her innocence, her wide-eyed naiveté,” says Cox, who in addition to playing Glinda serves as one of the show’s co-producers. Cox says she’s been thrilled to watch Lewis lose herself in the role while she toured with her for seven months: “She’s a brilliant performer.”

During the tour, a Los Angeles Times review described Lewis as “a sweetly sad yet still spirited Dorothy” with “a voice that can sweep the heavens.”

In a 14th-floor conference room off Fifth Avenue in late July, Lewis reflects on the journey, and what’s to come as “The Wiz” winds down.

She’s experienced the recording of the cast album, myriad interviews, including ABC’s “Nightline” and The New York Times, NPR’s “Tiny Desk Concert,” a performance on “The Jennifer Hudson Show,” photo shoots for Town and Country and a spread in Vogue after being dressed for the Met Gala.

She’s a singer-songwriter, working on her own music, and is open to television, film and more theater, she says: “I’m just going to kind of follow the path that has been created and we shall see where it takes.”

After opening night on Broadway, April 17, some of the original cast, including the first Dorothy, Stephanie Mills, came onstage after the show — current cast and crew gathered around.

“Thank you all so much,” said Mills, who plays Hermes in “Hadestown” nearby on Broadway. “You have brought this forward, you have urbanized it, you have made it 2024. We had it in 1974, and it was new, and it was different. But we thank you for what you have done to it.”

Mills catches the eye of Lewis. “Yes, Dorothy!” she says, in backstage footage from the night, “Yes, baby!” Lewis runs to embrace her.

But perhaps the biggest pleasure for Lewis has been the opportunity to give others joy. It also isn’t lost on her that among the audience members are young Black girls, looking up to her.

“I would love for people to just feel proud and feel beautiful in who they are and what they are,” Lewis says. “That’s another reason why I’m such a big advocate and why I love this show so much. Because if you’re a friend of Dorothy, then I hope you realize how amazing you are. And everyone is a friend of Dorothy.”

Outside the stage door after Saturday’s performance, Times Square crowds are shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalk. An 8-year-old named Ally from Scarsdale, New York, is waiting to see which cast members might make an appearance.

When Lewis comes over to sign her program, Ally’s mouth falls open, then breaks into a wide smile. “She was amazing,” she says.