Julie Taymor is an American director and writer of theater, opera, and film. Her stage adaptation of The Lion King debuted in 1997 and received eleven Tony Award nominations, with Taymor receiving Tony Awards for her direction and costume design. Her 2002 film Frida, about Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, was nominated for five Academy Awards, including a Best Original Song nomination for Taymor's composition "Burn It Blue." She also directed the 2007 jukebox musical film Across the Universe, based on the music of the Beatles.
Ellen Tyne Daly is an American actress. Over her six decade career she is known for her leading roles on stage and screen. She has won six Emmy Awards for her television work, a Tony Award, and is a 2011 American Theatre Hall of Fame inductee.
Mercedes J. Ruehl is an American screen, stage, and television actress. She is the recipient of several accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award, a Drama Desk Award, two Obie Awards, and two Outer Critics Circle Awards.
Judy Kuhn is an American actress, singer and activist, known for her work in musical theatre. A four-time Tony Award nominee, she has released four studio albums and sang the title role in the 1995 film Pocahontas, including her rendition of the song "Colors of the Wind", which won its composers the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Rosetta LeNoire was an American stage, film, and television actress. She was known to contemporary audiences for her work in television. She had regular roles on such series as Gimme a Break! and Amen, and is particularly known for her role as Estelle "Mother" Winslow on Family Matters. In 1999, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
Molly Picon was an American actress of stage, screen, radio and television, as well as a lyricist and dramatic storyteller.
Laurie Hope Beechman was an American actress and singer, known for her work in Broadway musicals. She also had a career as a cabaret performer and recording artist. After her death, the West Bank Cafe Downstairs Theater Bar in New York was renamed the Laurie Beechman Theatre.
Zoe Ada Caldwell was an Australian actress. She was a four-time Tony Award winner, winning Best Featured Actress in a Play for Slapstick Tragedy (1966), and Best Actress in a Play for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1968), Medea (1982), and Master Class (1996). Her film appearances include The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Birth (2004), and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011). She was also known for providing the voice of the Grand Councilwoman in the Lilo & Stitch franchise and in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep.
Michele Pawk is an American actress and singer. She is also an associate theater professor.
Barbara Walsh is an American musical theatre actress who has appeared in several prominent Broadway productions. Walsh is known for her Drama Desk Award and Tony Award nominated role as Trina in the original Broadway production of Falsettos, as well as her turn as Joanne in the 2006 Broadway Revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical Company.
Maryann Plunkett is an American actress and singer.
Linda Marie Emond is an American stage, film, and television actress. Emond has received three Tony Award nominations for her performances in Life (x) 3 (2003), Death of a Salesman (2012), and Cabaret (2014).
The Laurie Beechman Theatre is an 80-seat dinner theater in the basement of the West Bank Cafe at 407 West 42nd Street in the Manhattan Plaza apartment complex in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, New York City.
Sally Lee Mayes is an American actress and cabaret and concert singer.
Carole Demas is an American actress, best known for originating the roles of Sandy in the 1971 Broadway musical Grease and the title role in the original 1976 production of The Baker's Wife, for many prime time television roles, hundreds of commercials, and for her role in the long-running children's television show The Magic Garden. The winding path of Carole's career, highlighted in Schirmer, Citadel and Applause Books chronicling the trials and triumphs of Broadway, has taken her from her early days as Miss Vermont in The Miss Universe Contest, to major roles from coast to coast. Her cabaret and concert performances have brought funds and attention to many worthy causes.
Carrie Manolakos is an American singer-songwriter and musical theatre actress. As an actress, she is perhaps best known for her stage work, on Broadway in Mamma Mia! as Sophie Sheridan, and in the original 2nd national tour cast of Wicked as the Elphaba standby. She became an internet sensation after her cover of the Radiohead song "Creep" went viral after it was picked up by Gawker Media, under the title "Eargasm". The cover was performed at her album release party at Le Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village.
Leigh Silverman is an American director for the stage, both off-Broadway and on Broadway. She was nominated for the 2014 and 2024 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for the musicals Violet and Suffs, and the 2008 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Play for the play From Up Here.
Tanya Berezin was an American actress, co-founder and an artistic director of Circle Repertory Company in New York City, and educator. She performed on Broadway and Off-Broadway, and also appeared in a number of films and television series.
Mrs. Kasha Davis is the stage name of Edward Paul Popil Jr., an American drag queen, actor and television personality from Scranton, Pennsylvania. She is best known for competing on the seventh season of RuPaul's Drag Race and the eighth season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars. After appearing on the reality television show, Mrs. Kasha Davis toured internationally, released several musical singles, and performed in film, television and theatre.
Shona Tucker is an American actress and director. Beginning in the 1990s, she had roles in several television shows including Law & Order and New York Undercover. She has appeared in regional theater, including at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Off-Broadway at The Public Theater and elsewhere, in films such as 2016's King Cobra, and on Broadway in original cast of 2018's To Kill a Mockingbird with Jeff Daniels, and Death of a Salesman with Wendell Pierce. From 2008 until 2023 she taught in the Drama department at Vassar College, before becoming the chair of the Department of Theater Arts at the University of Louisville.
