Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. is an American actor, producer, and director. In a career spanning over four decades, Washington has received numerous accolades, including a Tony Award, two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and two Silver Bears. He was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2019, and in 2020 The New York Times named him the greatest actor of the 21st century. In 2022, Washington received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Hairspray is an American musical with music by Marc Shaiman and lyrics by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, with a book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan, based on John Waters's 1988 film of the same name. The songs include 1960s-style dance music and "downtown" rhythm and blues. Set in 1962 Baltimore, Maryland, the production follows teenage Tracy Turnblad's dream to dance on The Corny Collins Show, a local TV dance program based on the real-life Buddy Deane Show. When Tracy wins a role on the show, she becomes a celebrity overnight, leading to social change as Tracy campaigns for the show's integration.
Phylicia Rashad is an American actress. She is dean of the College of Fine Arts at Howard University and best known for her role as Clair Huxtable on the sitcom The Cosby Show (1984–1992) which earned her two Primetime Emmy Award nominations in 1985 and 1986. She also played Ruth Lucas on Cosby (1996–2000).
LaTanya Richardson Jackson is an American actress. She began her career appearing in off-Broadway productions, before playing supporting roles on television and film.
Jerry Mitchell is an American theatre director and choreographer.
Alfred Fox Uhry is an American playwright and screenwriter. He has received an Academy Award, two Tony Awards and the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for dramatic writing for Driving Miss Daisy. He is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
Raisin is a musical with music by Judd Woldin, lyrics by Robert Brittan, and a book by Robert Nemiroff and Charlotte Zaltzberg. It is an adaptation of the Lorraine Hansberry play A Raisin in the Sun; the musical's book was co-written by Hansberry's husband, Robert Nemiroff.
L. Scott Caldwell is an American actress perhaps best known for her roles as Deputy U.S. Marshall Erin Poole in The Fugitive (1993) and Rose on the television series Lost.
The Alliance Theatre is a theater company in Atlanta, Georgia, based at the Alliance Theatre, part of the Robert W. Woodruff Arts Center, and is the winner of the 2007 Regional Theatre Tony Award. The company, originally the Atlanta Municipal Theatre, staged its first production at the Alliance in 1968. The following year the company became the Alliance Theatre Company.
Stephen McKinley Henderson is an American actor. Henderson trained at Juilliard School for acting and later became a resident member of the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis from 1976 to 1981. He came to prominence as a character actor often performing the plays of August Wilson. He has received nominations for two Tony Awards, a Drama Desk Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. Vulture named Henderson as one of "The 32 Greatest Character Actors Working Today".
Jack O'Brien is an American director, producer, writer and lyricist. He served as the Artistic Director of the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, California from 1981 through the end of 2007.
A Raisin in the Sun is a 2008 American period drama television film directed by Kenny Leon and starring Sean Combs, Audra McDonald, Phylicia Rashad, and Sanaa Lathan. The teleplay by Paris Qualles is based on the award-winning 1959 play of the same name by Lorraine Hansberry and is the third film adaptation of that play following the 1961 film that starred Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Claudia McNeil, and Diana Sands, and the 1989 TV version on PBS' American Playhouse starring Danny Glover, and Esther Rolle.
David Binder is a Broadway, off-Broadway, and West End theater producer and artistic director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Robert Longbottom is a New York City-based choreographer and director, primarily for theatre and opera.
A Raisin in the Sun is a play by Lorraine Hansberry that debuted on Broadway in 1959. The title comes from the poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes. The story tells of a black family's experiences in south Chicago, as they attempt to improve their financial circumstances with an insurance payout following the death of the father, and deals with matters of housing discrimination, racism, and assimilation. The New York Drama Critics' Circle named it the best play of 1959, and in recent years publications such as The Independent and Time Out have listed it among the best plays ever written.
Charles Randolph-Wright is an American film, television, and theatre director, television producer, screenwriter, and playwright.
John Richard Tiffany is an English theatre director. He directed the internationally successful productions Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Black Watch and Once. He has won 2 Tony Awards, an Olivier Award, a Drama Desk Award and an Obie Award.
"Holler If Ya Hear Me is a jukebox musical written by Todd Kreidler featuring the rap music of Tupac Shakur.
Steven Levenson is an American playwright and television writer. He won the 2017 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for Dear Evan Hansen.
Wren T. Brown is an American actor, film producer, theatre director and a musical theatre director, known for his work in film, television, and voice. He is also the producing artistic director of "the first and only African-American professional Equity theatre company in Los Angeles," the award-winning Ebony Repertory Theatre (ERT), which he and the late theatre director Israel Hicks co-founded in 2007 to create a "world-class professional theatre rooted in the experience of the African Diaspora."
