Tony-winners Anika Noni-Rose (2004, Best Featured Actress in a Musical, Caroline, or Change) and Tonya Pinkins (1992, Best Featured Actress in a Musical, Jelly’s Last Jam) are teaming up again (they appeared on Broadway together in ‘Caroline, Or Change’) for a benefi
t reading of Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn Nottage’s play, Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine at New World Stages in Manhattan. Noni-Rose and Pinkins will be joined by Wood Harris (2012 Broadwa
y “multiracial” adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire, HBO’s The Wire) and Michael Mastro (2009, Broadway revival of West Side Story). This reading is to be directed by Tony-winner Kenny Leon (2014, Best Direction of a Play), who previously worked with Noni-Rose in his revival of A Raisin in the Sun (for which he won his Tony) in 2014, and Pinkins in Holler If Ya Hear Me in 2013.
This benefit, which is set to happen April 21st, at 6:30 PM is for the non-profit arts education organization Opening Act.
Proceeds of the evening go directly to Opening Act’s free theatre programs.
The non-
profit organization provides students attending New York City’s most under-served public schools, the opportunity – through theater – to develop leadership, commitment, confidence, and community. Opening Act provides free after-school and extra-curricular programs to the most high-need NYC public high schools that have low graduation rates and a lack of theater and arts programs. Tickets are now on sale at http://openingact.org/play-reading/.
Noni-Rose can next be seen in the CBS pilot For Justice, opposite fellow Tony-winner Phylicia Rashad (2004, Best Actress in a Play, A Raisin in the Sun), and directed by Ava DuVernay (director of the Oscar-winning film Selma, 2015). Pinkins can currently be seen in Joel Drake Johnson’s Rasheeda Speaking, at the New Group‘s Pershing Square Signature Center through March 22nd.
Up next for Kenny Leon is a revival of the 1980 Tony-winning play Children of a Lesser God, set to bow during the 2015-2016 season.
