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Kenny Leon
Kenny Leon is an American director, producer, actor, and author, notable for his work on Broadway, on television, and in regional theater. In 2014, he won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for ''A Raisin in the Sun''. Career He gained prominence in 1990, when he became one of the few African Americans to head a notable nonprofit theater company as the artistic director of Atlanta's Alliance Theatre Company. During Leon's tenure, the company staged premieres of Pearl Cleage's ''Blues for an Alabama Sky'', Alfred Uhry's ''The Last Night of Ballyhoo'', and Elton John and Tim Rice's musical ''Aida'', which went on to Broadway. The Alliance's endowment also rose from $1 to $5 million during his time there. Leon resigned from the Alliance in 2000 to take on other projects. These included being the co-founder and artistic director of True Colors Theatre Company, a group based in both Atlanta and Washington, D.C. He also took his talents to Broadway. In the spring of 20 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tallahassee, Florida
Tallahassee ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County, Florida, Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2020, the population was 196,169, making it the List of municipalities in Florida, 8th-largest city in the U.S state of Florida, and the List of United States cities by population, 126th-largest city in the United States. The population of the Tallahassee, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area, Tallahassee metropolitan area was 385,145 . Tallahassee is the largest city in the Big Bend (Florida), Florida Big Bend and Florida Panhandle region, and the main center for trade and agriculture in the Big Bend (Florida), Florida Big Bend and Southwest Georgia regions. With a student population exceeding 70,000, Tallahassee is a college town, home to Florida State University, ranked the nation's 19th-best public university by ''U.S. News & World R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aida (musical)
''Aida'' (also known as ''Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida'') is a musical based on the opera of the same name written by Antonio Ghislanzoni with music by Giuseppe Verdi. It has music by Elton John, lyrics by Tim Rice, and book by Linda Woolverton, Robert Falls, and David Henry Hwang, and was originally produced by Walt Disney Theatrical. ''Aida'' premiered on Broadway on March 23, 2000, running for 1,852 performances until September 5, 2004. It was nominated for five Tony Awards and won four, including Best Original Score. It was also named by ''Time'' as one of the top ten theatre productions of the year. The original Broadway cast recording won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album. A song from the show, " Written in the Stars", recorded by Elton John and LeAnn Rimes, reached No. 2 in the ''Billboard'' US adult contemporary music chart. Background The show is based on Giuseppe Verdi's Italian-language opera of the same name, the libretto of which was written by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drama Desk Award
The Drama Desk Award is an annual prize recognizing excellence in New York theatre. First bestowed in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award, the prize initially honored Off-Broadway productions, as well as Off-off-Broadway, and those in the vicinity. Following the 1964 renaming as the Drama Desk Awards, Broadway productions were included beginning with the 1968–69 award season. The awards are considered a significant American theater distinction. History The Drama Desk organization was formed in 1949 by a group of New York theater critics, editors, reporters and publishers, in order to make the public aware of the vital issues concerning the theatrical industry. They debuted the presentations of the ''Vernon Rice Awards''. The name honors the ''New York Post'' critic Vernon Rice, who had pioneered Off-Broadway coverage in the New York press. The name was changed for the 1963–1964 awards season to the ''Drama Desk Awards''. In 1974, the Drama Desk became incorporated as a not-for-pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radio Golf
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connected to an antenna which radiates the waves, and received by another antenna connected to a radio receiver. Radio is very widely used in modern technology, in radio communication, radar, radio navigation, remote control, remote sensing, and other applications. In radio communication, used in radio and television broadcasting, cell phones, two-way radios, wireless networking, and satellite communication, among numerous other uses, radio waves are used to carry information across space from a transmitter to a receiver, by modulating the radio signal (impressing an information signal on the radio wave by varying some aspect of the wave) in the transmitter. In radar, used to locate and track objects like aircraft, ships, spacecraft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toni Morrison
Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist. Her first novel, ''The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed '' Song of Solomon'' (1977) brought her national attention and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 1988, Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for ''Beloved'' (1987); she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. Born and raised in Lorain, Ohio, Morrison graduated from Howard University in 1953 with a B.A. in English. She earned a master's degree in American Literature from Cornell University in 1955. In 1957 she returned to Howard University, was married, and had two children before divorcing in 1964. Morrison became the first black female editor in fiction at Random House in New York City in the late 1960s. She developed her own reputation as an author in the 1970s and '80s. Her work ''Beloved'' was made into a film in 1998. Mor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Danielpour
Richard Danielpour (born January 28, 1956) is an American composer. Early life Danielpour was born in New York City of Persian Jewish descent and grew up in New York City and West Palm Beach, Florida. He studied at Oberlin College and the New England Conservatory of Music, and later at the Juilliard School of Music, where he received a DMA in composition in 1986. His primary composition professors at Juilliard were Vincent Persichetti and Peter Mennin. Danielpour previously taught at the Manhattan School of Music (since 1993) and the Curtis Institute of Music (since 1997), and is currently on the faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles. Music In common with many other American composers of the post-war generation, Danielpour began his career in a serialist milieu, but rejected it in the late 1980s in favor of a more ecumenical and "accessible" idiom. He cites the Beatles—along with John Adams, Christopher Rouse, and Joseph Schwantner—as influences on his more ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Margaret Garner (opera)
''Margaret Garner'' is an opera in two acts composed by Richard Danielpour to an English-language libretto by Toni Morrison. The opera is loosely based on actual events in the life of runaway slave Margaret Garner. A co-commission by the Michigan Opera Theatre, Cincinnati Opera and Opera Philadelphia, it premièred on 7 May 2005 at the Detroit Opera House in Detroit, Michigan with Denyce Graves in the title role. Background and performance history Morrison previously used the historic Margaret Garner as the inspiration for her novel ''Beloved''. This is one of a few operas written about the African-American experience; other notable examples are George Gershwin's ''Porgy and Bess'' (1935) and Scott Joplin's ''Treemonisha'' (1910/1972). The opera explores themes of freedom and personal and community relationships, and makes some use of the African-American musical tradition of spirituals. It was the first libretto for the author and the first opera for the composer. Danielpour b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gem Of The Ocean
''Gem of the Ocean'' (2003) is a play by American playwright August Wilson. Although the ninth play produced, chronologically it is the first installment of his decade-by-decade, ten-play chronicle, ''The Pittsburgh Cycle'', dramatizing the African-American experience in the twentieth century. At the time, only the 1990s remained unrepresented by a play. Plot The play is set in 1904 at 1839 Wylie Avenue in Pittsburgh's Hill District. Aunt Ester, the drama's 285-year-old fiery matriarch, welcomes into her home Solly Two Kings, who was born into slavery and scouted for the Union Army, and Citizen Barlow, a young man from Alabama searching for a new life and in search of redemption. Aunt Ester is not too old to practice healing; she guides Barlow on a soaring, lyrical journey of spiritual awakening to the City of Bones. Characters ; Aunt Ester Tyler: a former slave and a "soul-cleanser", who is the head of 1839 Wylie Avenue. She claims to be 285 years old and acts as the benevolent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
August Wilson
August Wilson ( Frederick August Kittel Jr.; April 27, 1945 – October 2, 2005) was an American playwright. He has been referred to as the "theater's poet of Black America". He is best known for a series of ten plays, collectively called ' (or ''The Century Cycle'')'','' which chronicle the experiences and heritage of the African-American community in the 20th century. Plays in the series include ''Fences'' (1987) and ''The Piano Lesson'' (1990), both of which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as ''Ma Rainey's Black Bottom'' (1984) and ''Joe Turner's Come and Gone'' (1988). In 2006, Wilson was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. His works delve into the African-American experience as well as examinations of the human condition. Other themes range from the systemic and historical exploitation of African Americans, as well as race relations, identity, migration, and racial discrimination. Viola Davis said that Wilson's writing "captures our humor, our vulnera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Audra McDonald
Audra Ann McDonald (born July 3, 1970) is an American actress and singer. Primarily known for her work on the Broadway stage, she has won six Tony Awards, more performance wins than any other actor, and is the only person to win in all four acting categories.Best Actress in a Play, Best Actress in a Musical, Best Featured Actress in a Play, and Best Featured Actress in a Musical. She has performed in musicals, operas, and dramas such as ''A Moon for the Misbegotten'', ''110 in the Shade'', '' Carousel'', ''Ragtime'', ''Master Class'', and ''Porgy and Bess''. As a classical soprano, she has performed in staged operas with the Houston Grand Opera and the Los Angeles Opera and in concerts with symphony orchestras like the Berlin Philharmonic and New York Philharmonic. In 2008, her recording of Kurt Weill's ''Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny'' with the Los Angeles Opera won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Album and the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording. She has a c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phylicia Rashad
Phylicia Rashad ( ) (née Ayers-Allen; born June 19, 1948) is an American actress, singer and director who is dean of the College of Fine Arts at Howard University. She is best known for her role as Clair Huxtable on the NBC sitcom ''The Cosby Show'' (1984–1992) which earned her Emmy Award nominations in 1985 and 1986. She also played Ruth Lucas on '' Cosby'' (1996–2000). She was dubbed "The Mother of the Black Community" at the 2010 NAACP Image Awards. In 2004, Rashad became the first black actress to win the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, which she won for her role in the revival of ''A Raisin in the Sun''.Tony Awards (official site) In 2022, Rashad won her second Tony Award for [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sean Combs
Sean Combs (born Sean John Combs; November 4, 1969), also known by his stage names Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Puffy, or Diddy, is an American rapper, actor, record producer, and record executive. Born in New York City, he worked as a talent director at Uptown Records before founding his own record label, Bad Boy Records in 1993. Combs has produced and cultivated artists such as the Notorious B.I.G., Mary J. Blige, and Usher. Combs' debut album, '' No Way Out'' (1997), has been certified seven times platinum. The album was followed by ''Forever'' (1999), '' The Saga Continues...'' (2001), and '' Press Play'' (2006), all of which were commercially successful. In 2009, Combs created and produced the musical group Dirty Money; they released their successful debut album ''Last Train to Paris'' in 2010. Combs has won three Grammy Awards and two MTV Video Music Awards and is the producer of MTV's ''Making the Band''. In 2022, ''Forbes'' estimated his net worth at US$1 billion. In 1998, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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