Out of the Lion’s Den…Introducing Syndee Winters…

The Westside Gazette
By Tamara G

One of South Florida’s very own is coming back home and in a BIG way! Actress Syndee Winters, who graduated from Miami Palmetto Senior High School and attended Miami Dade College, Kendall campus, is now called Nala (at least when she’s in the touring production of The Lion King, which is coming to the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami May 15-June 10. That’s because she has the starring role as the adult Nala, the future wife of Simba, the big cat in the production.

It’s a role that Winters, 25, says she was born to play. “When The Lion King movie first came out, I knew then that I wanted to play Nala because I was born to sing the song ‘Shadowland’. When I moved to New York, my agent got me a tryout for the Broadway version of TLK back in 2007, but I never got a callback. I thought it wasn’t my time. Three years later, I got another call to tryout again and I’ve been on tour with TLK for two years now.”

Before moving to New York, she taught at several South Florida dance studios and also lent her talents to teaching dance to inner-city youth. She also was a background dancer in several Reggaeton videos that were shot here. Says Winters, “I started my formal dance training when I was 15, in high school, when it was still free and available in high school.” She laments the fact that schools are taking the arts out of the curriculum.

After her move up north, she became a Knicks City dancer for The New York Knicks, performing during halftime shows. Though dancing, singing and acting came naturally to her, Winters says after she didn’t get that first callback, she hired a vocal coach and took up more acting classes to hone her skills so that she would really be ready when the call came again—and it did.

And that brings us back to why she’s returned home to South Florida—her starring role in TLK. So has life changed for her and those around her in how they treat her now that she’s a Broadway star? Winters replies, “Friends from school find me on Facebook and congratulate me and that’s fantastic, but the folks who’ve known me for my entire life, like my best, best friend-she stays with a needle in her hand—ready to pop that bubble whenever my head gets too big.” She adds, “But when I come home, there are some people that I have to see, no matter what.”

So what’s in store for Winters after TLK finally wraps up after years of touring from city to city? She says, “You know how when you’re younger, you always say ‘I want to be a famous singer’ or ‘I want every-one to know me and I want to be rich.’ Now what I want is to do more TV and film work, another Broadway show, and continue working on my own solo music project…. I want to do whatever comes my way.”