Shannon Skye Tavarez (January 20, 1999 – November 1, 2010) was an American

child actress The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting on stage or in movies or television. An adult who began their acting career as a child may also be called a child actor, or a "former child actor". Closely associated ...

and singer. She played young Nala in the

Broadway theatre Broadway theatre,Although ''theater'' is generally the spelling for this common noun in the United States (see American and British English spelling differences), 130 of the 144 extant and extinct Broadway venues use (used) the spelling ''Th ...

production of ''

The Lion King ''The Lion King'' is a 1994 American animated musical drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The 32nd Disney animated feature film and the fifth produced during the Disney Renaissance, it ...

'' by

Walt Disney Theatrical Disney Theatrical Productions Limited (DTP), also known as Disney on Broadway, is the flagship stageplay and musical production company of the Disney Theatrical Group, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Studios, a major business unit of The Walt Di ...

Background

Shannon Tavarez was the only child of Odiney Brown, a human resources administrator, and one of the daughters of a Dominican man with the surname of " Tavarez". She was a native and resident of

Bellerose, Queens Bellerose is a middle class neighborhood on the eastern edge of the New York City borough of Queens, along the border of Queens and Nassau County, Long Island. It is adjacent to Bellerose Village and Bellerose Terrace in Nassau County, from w ...

, and she was an honors student at

P.S. PostScript (PS) is a page description language in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm. It is a dynamically typed, concatenative programming language. It was created at Adobe Systems by John Warnock, Charles Geschke, Doug B ...

176 as well as a student of vocals and piano at the

Harlem School of the Arts Harlem School of the Arts (HSA) is an art school in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City. Harlem School of the Arts was founded in 1964, by soprano Dorothy Maynor. Maynor was succeeded by mezzo-soprano Betty Allen as President in 1979, when a new 3 ...

. She was chosen to play the role of young Nala after a cattle call audition at the

Apollo Theater The Apollo Theater is a music hall at 253 West 125th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (Seventh Avenue) and Frederick Douglass Boulevard (Eighth Avenue) in the Harlem neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is a not ...

, and she became one of two girls who split the role, with each of the girls performing four shows per week.

Illness and death

Several months after her September 2009 debut in ''The Lion King'', she was forced to leave the show after being diagnosed with

acute myeloid leukemia Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a cancer of the myeloid line of blood cells, characterized by the rapid growth of abnormal cells that build up in the bone marrow and blood and interfere with normal blood cell production. Symptoms may includ ...

. Because of her

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

and Dominican ethnic backgrounds, she faced much greater difficulty in attempts to find a match for a

bone marrow transplant Hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (HSCT) is the transplantation of multipotent hematopoietic stem cells, usually derived from bone marrow, peripheral blood, or umbilical cord blood in order to replicate inside of a patient and to produce ...

Alicia Keys Alicia Augello Cook (born January 25, 1981), known professionally as Alicia Keys, is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. A classically trained pianist, Keys started composing songs when she was 12 and was signed at 15 years old by Col ...

Rihanna Robyn Rihanna Fenty ( ; born February 20, 1988) is a Barbadian singer, actress, and businesswoman. Born in Saint Michael and raised in Bridgetown, Barbados, Rihanna auditioned for American record producer Evan Rogers who invited her to the ...

, and

50 Cent Curtis James Jackson III (born July 6, 1975), known professionally as 50 Cent, is an American rapper, actor, and businessman. Born in the South Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, Jackson began pursuing a musical career in 2000, when he produced ...

recruited prospective donors from among their fans to help her find a

bone marrow Bone marrow is a semi-solid tissue found within the spongy (also known as cancellous) portions of bones. In birds and mammals, bone marrow is the primary site of new blood cell production (or haematopoiesis). It is composed of hematopoietic ce ...

donor. Her former co-stars from ''The Lion King'' also helped her by selling "Shine for Shannon"

key chain A keychain (also key fob or keyring) is a small ring or chain of metal to which several keys can be attached. The length of a keychain allows an item to be used more easily than if connected directly to a keyring. Some keychains allow one or bo ...

s and bracelets to raise money to help her mother pay for her medical bills. Tavarez was then able to find a partial bone-marrow donor match. She subsequently had an

umbilical cord In placental mammals, the umbilical cord (also called the navel string, birth cord or ''funiculus umbilicalis'') is a conduit between the developing embryo or fetus and the placenta. During prenatal development, the umbilical cord is physiologic ...

transplant (prior to which she'd been undergoing

chemotherapy Chemotherapy (often abbreviated to chemo and sometimes CTX or CTx) is a type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs (chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) as part of a standardized chemotherapy regimen. Chemotherap ...

) because the doctors could not find a full bone-marrow-donor match for her. She died on November 1, 2010, at

Cohen Children's Medical Center Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center at Long Island Jewish Medical Center (CCMC), formerly Schneider Children's Hospital and North Shore-LIJ Children's Hospital is a pediatric acute care children's teaching hospital located in New ...

New Hyde Park, New York New Hyde Park is a village (New York), village in the Towns of Hempstead, New York, Hempstead and North Hempstead, New York, North Hempstead in Nassau County, New York, Nassau County, on Long Island, in New York (state), New York, United States. ...

, at the age of 11. The lights at the

Minskoff Theatre The Minskoff Theatre is a Broadway theater on the third floor of the One Astor Plaza office building in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1973, it is operated by the Nederlander Organization and is named afte ...

, where ''The Lion King'' was playing, were dimmed in her memory on the night that she died, and her funeral was held at Greater Allen A. M. E. Cathedral of New York. In a statement released following her death, her mother (who started Shannon's S.H.A.R.E Foundation a year thereafter) said that "Shannon's dream was to perform on stage, and that she did."Fundraiser honors the memory of ''Lion King'' actress Shannon Tavarez, who drew 15,000 marrow donors
/ref>

References

External links

Shannon's S.H.A.R.E Foundation
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tavarez, Shannon 1999 births 2010 deaths 21st-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women Actresses from New York City African-American people African-American women musicians American child actresses American people of Dominican Republic descent American stage actresses American women singers Deaths from cancer in New York (state) Deaths from leukemia People from Queens, New York