Muhammad Ali was an American professional boxer and activist. Nicknamed "the Greatest", he is regarded as one of the most significant sports figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time. He held the Ring magazine heavyweight title from 1964 to 1970, was the undisputed champion from 1974 to 1978, and was the WBA and Ring heavyweight champion from 1978 to 1979. In 1999, he was named Sportsman of the Century by Sports Illustrated and the Sports Personality of the Century by the BBC.
August Wilson 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 10 plays, collectively called The Pittsburgh 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 Wilson 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.
Ali is a 2001 American biographical sports drama film co-written, produced and directed by Michael Mann. The film focuses on ten years in the life of the boxer Muhammad Ali, played by Will Smith, beginning with his capture of the heavyweight title from Sonny Liston in 1964 and ending with his reclaiming the title from George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle fight of 1974.
Donald Margulies is an American playwright and academic. In 2000, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Dinner with Friends.
Stephen Flaherty is an American composer of musical theatre and film. He works most often in collaboration with the lyricist/book writer Lynn Ahrens. They are best known for writing the Broadway musicals Ragtime, which was nominated for thirteen Tony Awards, two Grammy Awards, and won the Tony for Best Original Score; Once on This Island, which won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical, the Olivier Award for London's Best Musical, and was nominated for a Grammy Award and eight Tony Awards; and Seussical, which was nominated for the Grammy Award. Flaherty was also nominated for two Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards for his songs and song score for the animated film musical Anastasia.
The San Jose Repertory Theatre was the first resident professional theatre company in San Jose, California. It was founded in 1980 by James P. Reber. In 2008, after the demise of the American Musical Theatre of San Jose, the San Jose Rep became the largest non-profit, professional theatre company in the South Bay with an annual operating budget of $5 million. In 2006, it was saved from impending insolvency by a $2 million bailout loan from the city of San Jose; this was later restructured into a long-term loan similar to a mortgage.
Will Eno is an American playwright based in Brooklyn, New York. His play, Thom Pain was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 2005. His play The Realistic Joneses appeared on Broadway in 2014, where it received a Drama Desk Special Award and was named Best Play on Broadway by USA Today, and best American play of 2014 by The Guardian. His play The Open House was presented Off-Broadway at the Signature Theatre in 2014 and won the Obie Award for Playwriting as well as other awards, and was on both TIME Magazine and Time Out New York 's Top Ten Plays of 2014.
Sarah Ruhl is an American playwright, poet, professor, and essayist. Among her most popular plays are Eurydice (2003), The Clean House (2004), and In the Next Room (2009). She has been the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a distinguished American playwright in mid-career. Two of her plays have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and she received a nomination for Tony Award for Best Play. In 2020, she adapted her play Eurydice into the libretto for Matthew Aucoin's opera of the same name. Eurydice was nominated for Best Opera Recording at the 2023 Grammy Awards.
Will Power is an American playwright, rapper, actor, and educator.
Tarell Alvin McCraney is an American playwright. He is the chair of playwriting at the Yale School of Drama and a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Ensemble.
Bruce Norris is an American character actor and playwright associated with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company of Chicago. His play Clybourne Park won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Annie Baker is an American playwright, film director, and teacher who won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for her play The Flick. Among her works are the Shirley, Vermont plays, which take place in the fictional town of Shirley: Circle Mirror Transformation, Nocturama, Body Awareness, and The Aliens. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2017. Her debut film Janet Planet released in 2023 to critical acclaim.
Rajiv Joseph is an American playwright. He was named a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, and he won an Obie Award for Best New American Play for his play Describe the Night.
Round House Theatre is an American professional theater company located in Bethesda, Maryland. Founded in 1978, it operates as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The theater produces contemporary plays and classic works, with a focus on American playwrights.
Company One is a non-profit theater company located in the Boston Center for the Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, US. The company is known for socially conscious theater programming. Company One has produced more than 50 plays since 1998.
Ray Fisher is an American actor. He is known for his portrayal of the superhero Victor Stone / Cyborg in the DC Extended Universe media franchise, including in Justice League (2017). In television, he played roles in the third season of the crime drama series True Detective in 2019 and the limited series Women of the Movement in 2022. He made his Broadway debut in the 2022 revival of the play The Piano Lesson and has also starred in its 2024 film adaptation.
One Night in Miami is the debut play written by Kemp Powers, first performed in 2013. It is a fictional account of the real night of February 25, 1964. It pinpoints a pivotal moment in the lives of four, still nascent, Black American icons whose potential, thoughts and actions play out in the 90-minute, one-act play. The four characters are 22-year-old, newly crowned world boxing champion Cassius Clay as he transforms into Muhammad Ali, iconic Nation of Islam leader Malcolm X, influential singer-songwriter and record producer Sam Cooke, and star NFL running back Jim Brown. The men, friends in real life, celebrate Clay's surprise title win over Sonny Liston at the Hampton House in Miami, watched over by Nation of Islam security.
James Ijames is an American playwright, actor, and professor originally from Bessemer City, North Carolina. He received his B.A. in Drama from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, and earned his MFA in Acting from Temple University in Philadelphia, where he is now based. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Villanova University and former co-artistic director of the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia. Ijames is a founding member of Orbiter 3, Philadelphia's first playwright producing collective. His adaptation of Hamlet, titled Fat Ham, won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2022 after premiering as a "digital production" at the Wilma in 2021. A second production ran at The Public Theater during the summer of 2022, before opening on Broadway in April 2023. He is the recipient of the 2018 Whiting Award for drama and the F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Philadelphia Theatre Artist.
Idris Goodwin is an American playwright, rapper, essayist, and poet. In July 2022, Idris Goodwin became the third Artistic Director of Seattle Children's Theatre.
Muhammad Ali was a boxer who mastered the rope-a-dope fighting technique. He is widely regarded by many boxing commentators and historians as the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time. Boxing magazine The Ring named him number one in a 1998 ranking of greatest heavyweights from all eras. In 1999, The Associated Press voted Ali the number one heavyweight of the 20th century. Muhammad Ali's amateur record was 180-0. In 1999, Ali was named the second greatest boxer in the history of combat sports, pound for pound by ESPN. He was only behind the welterweight and middleweight legend Sugar Ray Robinson. In December 2007, ESPN placed Ali second in its choice of the greatest heavyweights of all time, behind Joe Louis. He was inducted in the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the inaugural class of 1990.
