[2][3] In 2022, Rashad won her second Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performance in Dominique Morisseau's Skeleton Crew.

In the 21st century, she has directed revivals of three plays by August Wilson, in major theaters in Seattle, Princeton, New Jersey; and Los Angeles.

[8] Ayers-Allen later studied at Howard University, graduating magna cum laude in 1970 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

[9] Ayers-Allen first became known for her roles on stage, making her Broadway debut in the Melvin Van Peebles musical Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death (1971).

[12] The album was mainly written and produced by Jacques Morali and Victor Willis, Rashad's second husband and the original lead singer and lyricist of the Village People.

Rashad joined the cast of the ABC soap opera One Life to Live to play publicist Courtney Wright in 1983.

In 1985, Rashad co-hosted the NBC telecast of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with Pat Sajak and Bert Convy.

[16] She also played a role in the pre-show of the Dinosaur ride at Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom theme park as Dr. Helen Marsh, the head of the Dino Institute.

In 2007, Rashad made her directorial debut with the Seattle Repertory Theatre's production of August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean.

[18] In 2008, Rashad starred on Broadway as Big Mama in an all African-American production of Tennessee Williams's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by her sister Debbie Allen.

She appeared alongside stage veterans James Earl Jones (Big Daddy) and Anika Noni Rose (Maggie), as well as film actor Terrence Howard, who made his Broadway debut as Brick.

[19] In February 2008, Rashad portrayed Lena Younger in the television film adaptation of A Raisin in the Sun, directed by Kenny Leon.

[21] In 2009, she appeared as Violet Weston, the drug-addicted matriarch of Tracy Letts's award-winning play August: Osage County, at the Music Box Theatre.

She continued to focus on Wilson's work, including a well-received production of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which she directed at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in late 2016.

And I think Tyler Perry has added an element here that wasn't in the original stage production, and that is the necessity for taking responsibility for one's own self otherwise you are just living to die.

This version has an all African American A-list cast, including Queen Latifah as M'Lynn, Jill Scott as Truvy, Condola Rashād as Shelby, Adepero Oduye as Annelle, and Alfre Woodard as Ouiser.

In 2016, Rashad was cast as a recurring guest star in the role of Diana DuBois in the third season of the Lee Daniels-produced Empire television series on Fox.

[28] In 2017, Rashad portrayed Bishop Yvette A. Flunder, pastor of The City of Refuge Church in San Francisco, Calif., as part of the Dustin Lance Black mini-series When We Rise.

Rashad married Victor Willis (original lead singer of the Village People) in 1978; they had met during the run of The Wiz.

He proposed to her during a pregame show for a nationally televised Thanksgiving Day football game between the New York Jets and the Detroit Lions on November 28, 1985.

[47] Rashad faced widespread criticism after she posted the following tweet in support of Bill Cosby after he was released from jail on a technicality: "FINALLY!!!!