The Scottsboro Boys were nine African American male teenagers accused in Alabama of raping two white women in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial. The cases included a lynch mob before the suspects had been indicted, all-white juries, rushed trials, and disruptive mobs. It is commonly cited as an example of a legal injustice in the United States legal system.
Susan P. Stroman is an American theatre director, choreographer, film director and performer. Her notable theater productions include Oklahoma!, The Music Man, Crazy for You, Contact, The Producers, The Frogs, The Scottsboro Boys, Bullets Over Broadway, POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, and New York, New York.
The Outer Critics Circle Awards are presented annually for theatrical achievements both on Broadway and Off-Broadway. They are presented by the Outer Critics Circle (OCC), the official organization of New York theater writers for out-of-town newspapers, digital and national publications, and other media beyond Broadway. The awards were first presented during the 1949–50 theater season, celebrating their 70th anniversary in 2020. David Gordon, Editor-in-Chief at TheaterMania.com, currently serves as president.
Dee Dee Bridgewater is an American jazz singer and actress. She is a three-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, as well as a Tony Award-winning stage actress. For 23 years, she was the host of National Public Radio's syndicated radio show JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater. She is a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Black Nativity is an adaptation of the Nativity story by Langston Hughes, performed by an entirely black cast. Hughes was the author of the book, with the lyrics and music being derived from traditional Christmas carols, sung in gospel style, with a few songs created specifically for the show. The show was first performed Off-Broadway on December 11, 1961, and was one of the first plays written by an African American to be staged there. The show had a successful tour of Europe in 1962, one of its appearances being at the Spoleto Festival of Two Worlds in Italy.
Beatrice Winde was an American actress. Her work as a character actor, and a singer, in theatrical, television, and film roles, spanned several decades.
Lynn Nottage is an American playwright whose work often focuses on the experience of working-class people, particularly working-class people who are Black. She has received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice: in 2009 for her play Ruined, and in 2017 for her play Sweat. She was the first woman to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama two times.
Second Stage Theater is a theater company founded in 1979 by Robyn Goodman and Carole Rothman and located in Manhattan, New York City. It produces both new plays and revivals of contemporary American plays by new playwrights and established writers. The company has an off-Broadway theater, the Tony Kiser Theater at 305 West 43rd Street on the corner of Eighth Avenue near the Theater District, and formerly had an off-off-Broadway theater, the McGinn–Cazale Theater on the Upper West Side. In April 2015, the company expanded into Broadway theater productions when it bought the Helen Hayes Theater.
Ann Duquesnay is an American musical theatre singer/actress, composer and lyricist. She is best known for Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk, which earned her a Tony Award and Grammy Award nomination.
AUDELCO, the Audience Development Committee, Inc., was established in 1973 by Vivian Robinson to honor excellence in African American theatre in New York City.
Gertrude Hadley Jeannette was an American playwright and film and stage actress. She is also known for being the first woman to work as a licensed taxi driver in New York City, which she began doing in 1942. Despite being blacklisted during the Red Scare in the 1950s, she wrote five plays and founded the H.A.D.L.E.Y. Players in Harlem, New York, remaining active in mentoring African-American actors in New York City. In the 1960s and 1970s she appeared in Broadway productions such as The Long Dream, Nobody Loves an Albatross, The Amen Corner, The Skin of Our Teeth and Vieux Carré. She also appeared in films such as Cotton Comes to Harlem in 1969, Shaft in 1971, and Black Girl in 1972. She acted into her 80s and retired from directing theater at the age of 98.
Soara-Joye Ross, previously known as Joy Ross, Joye Ross, Joy E. T. Ross, and also known as Soara-Joyce Ross is an American actress and singer.
The Lucille Lortel Awards recognize excellence in New York Off-Broadway theatre. The Awards are named for Lucille Lortel, an actress and theater producer, and have been awarded since 1986. They are produced by the League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers by special arrangement with the Lucille Lortel Foundation, with additional support from the Theatre Development Fund.
Katori Hall is an American playwright, screenwriter, producer, actress, and director from Memphis, Tennessee. Hall's best known works include the hit television series P-Valley, the Tony-nominated Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, and plays such as Hurt Village, Our Lady of Kibeho, Children of Killers, The Mountaintop, and The Hot Wing King, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
The Scottsboro Boys is a musical with a book by David Thompson, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. Based on the Scottsboro Boys trial, the musical is one of the last collaborations between Kander and Ebb prior to the latter's death. The musical has the framework of a minstrel show, altered to "create a musical social critique" with a company that, except for one, consists "entirely of African-American performers".
Alfred Preisser is an American theater director, playwright, producer and teacher of acting. He currently is the Artistic Director and Theater Director at Harlem School of the Arts.
Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj is an Indo-Afro-Caribbean American theater director, playwright, producer and activist. He holds an associate degree in Criminal Justice from St. John's University, a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Arts from St. John's University, and a Master of Fine Arts in Theatrical Directing from Brooklyn College. He is currently the Associate Artistic Producer of Milwaukee Repertory Theater. He started Rebel Theater Company in 2003 in New York City, and served as Producing Artistic Director. He is the former Artistic Director of New Freedom Theatre in Philadelphia. He is the Third Vice President for the Brooklyn Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He is the Chair of the Equity in the Arts and Culture Committee for the NAACP Brooklyn Branch.
Billie Allen was an American actress, theater director, dancer and entertainer. Allen was one of the first black actors and performers to appear on television and stage in the United States, at a time when those venues were largely closed to African Americans. During the 1950s, Allen became one of the first black entertainers to have a recurring role on network television when she was cast as a WAC on staff on the CBS army base comedy The Phil Silvers Show, from 1955 to 1959. She was one of the first African Americans to appear on television commercials in the U.S. She was also one of the earliest African American actors on daytime soap operas as she appeared in the mid-1950s as the character Ada Chandler on the popular daytime soap opera The Edge of Night. Allen was also known for her work on Broadway and off Broadway.
Dominique Morisseau is an American playwright and actress from Detroit, Michigan. She has written more than nine plays, three of which are part of a cycle titled The Detroit Project. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2018.
Betty Gabriel is an American actress. For her work in horror films, particularly Blumhouse films, Gabriel has been established as a scream queen. She has been nominated for two Black Reel Awards, a NAACP Image Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
