Courtney B. Vance Archives - Broadway Black https://www.broadwayblack.com/tag/courtney-b-vance/ When Theatre Goes Dark Thu, 23 Jul 2015 15:01:20 +0000 en hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://i0.wp.com/www.broadwayblack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/cropped-Broadway-Gold-B-1.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 Courtney B. Vance Archives - Broadway Black https://www.broadwayblack.com/tag/courtney-b-vance/ 32 32 26346292 Director Kenny Leon Wins Again; Appointed To ATW Advisory Committee https://www.broadwayblack.com/director-kenny-leon-wins-appointed-atw-advisory-committee/ https://www.broadwayblack.com/director-kenny-leon-wins-appointed-atw-advisory-committee/#respond Thu, 23 Jul 2015 15:01:20 +0000 http://broadwayblack.com/?p=8122 Chalk up another accomplishment for acclaimed Tony Award-winning director Kenny Leon! The American Theatre Wing recently appointed Leon to its Advisory Committee, which provides support, and guidance to the Board of Trustees and staff of the Wing as they implement the organization’s goals and objectives. It’s only fitting that Leon serve on this committee, as […]

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]]> Chalk up another accomplishment for acclaimed Tony Award-winning director Kenny Leon! The American Theatre Wing recently appointed Leon to its Advisory Committee, which provides support, and guidance to the Board of Trustees and staff of the Wing as they implement the organization’s goals and objectives.

It’s only fitting that Leon serve on this committee, as he has enjoyed an exceptional and creative career on Broadway and in regional theatre. Leon won the Best Director of a Play Tony for 2014’s A Raisin in the Sun with Denzel Washington and Sophie Okonedo. Ten years before that, he made his Broadway debut with the same play, directing Sean Combs, Audra McDonald and Phylicia Rashad.

In addition to A Raisin in the Sun, Leon’s Broadway credits include The Mountaintop starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett, August Wilson’s Fences (which garnered 10 Tony nominations and won three Tony Awards including Best Revival), and the 2014 premiere of Holler if You Hear Me, a musical created using the music of Tupac Shakur.

Leon rose to prominence in 1988 as one of the few African Americans to head a notable nonprofit theater company as the artistic director of Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre Company. During his 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 tenure.

After resigning from the Alliance, Leon co-founded Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre in Atlanta and currently serves as its the artistic director. Since its opening, the company has staged productions of The Wiz, Black Nativity, Miss Evers’ Boys, The Colored Museum and Spunk among others. It also boasts Hollywood and Broadway heavy hitters such as Reuben Cannon, Angela Bassett, Samuel L. Jackson, Bill Nunn, Courtney B. Vance and Phylicia Rashad on its Board of Trustees and Advisory Board.

Leon is also noted for his work in television, including “In My Dreams” for Hallmark Hall of Fame, “The Watsons go to Birmingham” for Walden Media and Hallmark, and the Sony and Lifetime TV adaptation of “Steel Magnolias”. Leon is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2010 Julia Hansen Award for Excellence in Directing by the Drama League of New York.

On working with Leon, Cleage once told National Public Radio, “He isn’t really someone who’s trying to superimpose a flashy vision, so that people will gasp and say ‘Oh, the director was this and the director was that,’ He’s actually trying to get to the heart — the real heart — of these people that the playwright has created.”

In addition to Leon, actress Tamara Tunie serves on The American Theatre Wing Advisory Committee and LaTanya Richardson Jackson is a member of its Board of Trustees.

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]]> https://www.broadwayblack.com/director-kenny-leon-wins-appointed-atw-advisory-committee/feed/ 0 8122 All Hail King August Wilson! https://www.broadwayblack.com/all-hail-king-august-wilson/ https://www.broadwayblack.com/all-hail-king-august-wilson/#respond Thu, 14 May 2015 19:14:51 +0000 http://broadwayblack.com/?p=5644 On April 27, 2015 the world celebrated the seventieth birthday of American playwright August Wilson. We here at Broadway Black took the entire day to drop some knowledge on our social media followers about  “America’s Shakespeare” through photos and facts. We highlighted some of his career successes along with discussing the impacts his work had […]

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]]> On April 27, 2015 the world celebrated the seventieth birthday of American playwright August Wilson. We here at Broadway Black took the entire day to drop some knowledge on our social media followers about  “America’s Shakespeare” through photos and facts. We highlighted some of his career successes along with discussing the impacts his work had on American culture. The hashtag #AllAUGUSTAllDay was used and magic ensued…

Our followers jumped at the opportunity to join in the praise…

 

August Wilson was an American playwright who did the unheard of- penning ten plays. One for each decade of the twentieth century for which he received two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama. The Century Cycle gave a glimpse into American history through the lens of the Black experience. It included: Fences, Jitney, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Gem of the Ocean, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars, Two Trains Running, Radio Golf, and King Hedley II. What made Wilson’s work so incredible is that he did not write the plays sequentially. In fact, the last play he wrote and staged, Gem of the Ocean, is actually the first in the cycle.

Many of today’s most successful black actors and actresses have been a part of August Wilson’s work. Talents like Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, James Earl Jones, Taraji P. Henson, Courtney B. Vance, Phylicia Rashad and too many others to list have all had the opportunity to live in Wilson’s worlds and obtain great success.

“I think the play offers (white Americans) a different way to look at black Americans… For instance, in ‘Fences’ they see a garbageman, a person they don’t really look at, although they see a garbageman every day. By looking at Troy’s life, white people find out that the content of this black garbageman’s life is affected by the same things- love, honor, beauty, betrayal, duty. Recognizing that these things are as much part of his life as theirs can affect how they think about and deal with black people in their lives.”

-“August Wilson, Theater’s Poet of Black America, Is Dead at 60” The New York Times, October 3, 2005.

August Wilson understood the power of the theatre and used it to its full potential by inserting honesty and realism into every play. The lines read like poetry- exuding love, pain, tragedy, joy, slight, and pride. There is a resounding truth in all of Wilson’s work. It connects us, not only to the Black experience, but to the human experience.

To Mr. Wilson we say thank you for loving our people as a whole. For not censoring our lives, but articulating the meanings to help us better understand ourselves. Thank you for your integrity and empowerment. For allowing your characters to be vivid, complex, angry, happy, confused, arrogant, and gracious. Thank you for creating substantial and sustainable work that is constantly giving to every generation until the end of time… Much love, sir.

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