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Ebony Repertory Theatre
Ebony Repertory Theatre (ERT) is a non-profit theatre company founded in June 2007 by Wren T. Brown and the late Israel Hicks. ERT is the resident company and operator of the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, a 400-seat regional theatre in Los Angeles, California's Mid-City community. ERT, whose award-winning theatre is its cornerstone, is the only African American professional theatre company (Actors Equity) in Los Angeles. ERT also presents a music series, a dance series, lecture series and other perennial programming. Under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director, Wren T. Brown, ERT "seeks to bring diverse, high standard, professional performing arts to the Mid-City community..." ERT is known for productions featuring performances by theatre, film and television actors, including Tony Award winners Roger Robinson, Ruben Santiago Hudson, L. Scott Caldwell, Leslie Odom Jr., Phylicia Rashad, Billy Porter and Garth Fagan, Emmy Award winners, Obba Babatunde, Blair Underw ...
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Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world's most populous megacities. Los Angeles is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With a population of roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits , Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic and cultural diversity, being the home of the Hollywood film industry, and its sprawling metropolitan area. The city of Los Angeles lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley, with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to it's east. It covers about , and is the county seat of Los Angeles County, which is the most populous county in the United States with an ...
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Obba Babatunde
Obba may refer to: * Obba (town), an ancient town and former bishopric in the Roman province of Africa, now a Latin Catholic titular see * Oba (goddess), a Yoruba goddess ; Biology * ''Obba'' (fungus), a fungus genus in the order Polyporales * ''Obba'' (gastropod), a genus of land snail in the family Camaenidae * ''Obba'', a synonym for ''Ugia'', a genus of moths ; People * Obba Babatundé (born 1950), American stage and movie actor * Hatem Obba Hatem ( ar, حاتم) is a masculine Arabic given name, it may refer to: Given name * Hatem Ali, Syrian actor * Hatem Ben Arfa, French football player of Tunisian descent * Hatem Aqel, Jordanian footballer * Hatem Ali Jamadar, Bengali politici ... (born 1991), Tunisian volleyball player See also * Oba (other) {{disambiguation, given name, surname ...
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Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment industry worldwide. Given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the awards are an international recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements, as assessed by the Academy's voting membership. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette as a trophy, officially called the "Academy Award of Merit", although more commonly referred to by its nickname, the "Oscar". The statuette, depicting a knight rendered in the Art Deco style, was originally sculpted by Los Angeles artist George Stanley (sculptor), George Stanley from a design sketch by art director Cedric Gibbons. The 1st Academy Awards were held in 1929 at a private dinner hosted by Douglas Fairbanks in The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel ...
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Ahmad Jamal
Ahmad Jamal (born Frederick Russell Jones, July 2, 1930) is an American jazz pianist, composer, bandleader and educator. For six decades, he has been one of the most successful small-group leaders in jazz. Biography Early life Jamal was born Frederick Russell Jones in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on July 2, 1930. He began playing piano at the age of three, when his uncle Lawrence challenged him to duplicate what he was doing on the piano. Jamal began formal piano training at the age of seven with Mary Cardwell Dawson, whom he describes as greatly influencing him. His Pittsburgh roots have remained an important part of his identity ("Pittsburgh meant everything to me and it still does," he said in 2001) and it was there that he was immersed in the influence of jazz artists such as Earl Hines, Billy Strayhorn, Mary Lou Williams, and Erroll Garner. Jamal also studied with pianist James Miller and began playing piano professionally at the age of fourteen, at which point he was recogni ...
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NEA Jazz Masters
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), every year honors up to seven jazz musicians with Jazz Master Awards. The National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Fellowships are the self-proclaimed highest honors that the United States bestows upon jazz musicians. The award is usually given late in a performer's career after they have long established themselves. NEA Jazz Masters List adapted from the National Endowment for the Arts website. *1982: Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, Sun Ra *1983: Count Basie, Kenny Clarke, Sonny Rollins *1984: Ornette Coleman, Miles Davis, Max Roach *1985: Gil Evans, Ella Fitzgerald, Jo Jones *1986: Benny Carter, Dexter Gordon, Teddy Wilson *1987: Cleo Patra Brown, Melba Liston, Jay McShann *1988: Art Blakey, Lionel Hampton, Billy Taylor *1989: Barry Harris, Hank Jones, Sarah Vaughan *1990: George Russell, Cecil Taylor, Gerald Wilson *1991: Danny Barker, Buck Clayton, Andy Kirk, Clark Terry *1992: Betty Carter, Dorothy Donegan, Harry "S ...
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India Arie
India Arie Simpson (born October 3, 1975), also known as India Arie (sometimes styled as india.arie), is an American singer and songwriter. She has sold over five million records in the US and ten million worldwide. She has won four Grammy Awards from her 23 nominations, including Best R&B Album. Background India was born in Denver, Colorado, the daughter of Joyce and Ralph Simpson. Her musical skills were encouraged by both parents in her younger years. Her mother is a former singer (she was signed to Motown as a teenager and opened for Stevie Wonder and Al Green) and is now her stylist. She has an older brother named J'On and younger sister Mary A Martin of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Arie is African-American, and according to a DNA analysis, she descends from the Mende people of Sierra Leone, the Kru people of Liberia and the Fula people of Guinea-Bissau. After Simpson's parents divorced, her mother moved the family to Atlanta, Georgia when India was 13. Simpson had taken up ...
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Billy Childs
William Edward Childs (born March 8, 1957) is an award-winning American composer, jazz pianist, arranger and conductor from Los Angeles, California, United States. Early life When he was sixteen he attended the Community School of the Performing Arts sponsored by the University of Southern California. He studied music theory with Marienne Uszler and piano with John Weisenfluh. From 1975–'79 he attended the University of Southern California and received a degree in composition under the tutelage of Robert Linn. While still a teen, Childs was playing professionally and he made his recording debut in 1977 with the J. J. Johnson Quintet during a tour of Japan, documented as "the Yokohama Concert". He gained significant attention during the six years (1978–84) he spent in trumpeter Freddie Hubbard's group. His early influences as a pianist included Herbie Hancock, Keith Emerson, and Chick Corea and as a composer, Paul Hindemith, Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky. Childs neverthe ...
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Dianne Reeves
Dianne Elizabeth Reeves (born October 23, 1956) is an American jazz singer. Biography Dianne Reeves was born in Detroit, Michigan, into a musical family. Her father sang, her mother played trumpet, her uncle is bassist Charles Burrell, and her cousin is George Duke. Her father died when she was two years old, and she was raised in Denver, Colorado, by her mother, Vada Swanson, and maternal family. She was raised Catholic and attended Cure D'Ars Catholic School in Denver for much of her early schooling. Career In 1971, she started singing and playing piano. She was a member of her high-school band, and while performing at a convention in Chicago was noticed by trumpeter Clark Terry, who invited her to sing with him. "He had these amazing all-star bands, but I had no idea who they all were! The thing I loved about it was the way they interacted with each other – the kind of intimate exchange that I wasn't part of. For a young singer, it was fertile soil." She studied classi ...
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Grammy Award
The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the music industry worldwide. It was originally called the Gramophone Awards, as the trophy depicts a gilded gramophone. The Grammys are the first of the Big Three networks' major music awards held annually, and is considered one of the four major annual American entertainment awards, alongside the Academy Awards (for films), the Emmy Awards (for television), and the Tony Awards (for theater). The first Grammy Awards ceremony was held on May 4, 1959, to honor the musical accomplishments of performers for the year 1958. After the 2011 ceremony, the Recording Academy overhauled many Grammy Award categories for 2012. History The Grammys had their origin in the Hollywood Walk of Fame project in the 1950s. ...
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Levar Burton
Levar Burton Jr. (born February 16, 1957) is an American actor, director, and television host, best known for playing Geordi La Forge in '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' (1987–1994). He also played Kunta Kinte in the ABC miniseries '' Roots'' (1977), and was host of the PBS Kids educational television series ''Reading Rainbow'' for more than 23 years (1983–2006). He received 12 Daytime Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award as host and executive producer of ''Reading Rainbow''. His other roles include Cap Jackson in ''Looking for Mr. Goodbar'' (1977), Donald Lang in ''Dummy'' (1979), Tommy Price in ''The Hunter'' (1980), which earned him an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture, and Martin Luther King Jr. in ''Ali'' (2001). Burton received the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album at the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards for his narration of the book ''The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.'' In 1990, he was honored for his achievements in televi ...
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Loretta Devine
Loretta Devine (born August 21, 1949) is an American actress, singer and voice actor. She is known for numerous roles across stage and screen. Her most high profile roles include Lorrell Robinson in the original Broadway production of '' Dreamgirls'', the long-suffering Gloria Matthews in the film '' Waiting to Exhale'', and her recurring role as Adele Webber on the medical drama ''Grey's Anatomy'', for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series in 2011. Early life Loretta Devine was born in Houston, Texas, on August 21, 1949. She grew up in the Acres Homes area of Houston, where her mother was a single mother to six children. She was very active on the pep squad, and performed in talent shows at George Washington Carver High School. In 1971, Devine graduated from the University of Houston with a Bachelor of Arts in Speech and Drama. In 1976, she received a Master of Fine Arts in Theater from Brandeis University. She was initiated ...
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Glynn Turman
Glynn Russell Turman (born January 31, 1947) is an American actor, writer, director, and producer. Turman is known for his roles as Lew Miles on the prime-time soap opera ''Peyton Place (TV series), Peyton Place'' (1968–1969), high school student Leroy "Preach" Jackson in the 1975 coming of age, coming-of-age film ''Cooley High'', math professor and retired Army colonel Bradford Taylor on the NBC sitcom ''A Different World (TV series), A Different World'' (1988–1993), and Baltimore mayor Clarence Royce on the HBO drama series ''The Wire''. He also portrayed Jeremiah Kaan on the Showtime (TV channel), Showtime series ''House of Lies'' and Doctor Senator in the Fargo (season 4), fourth season of the FX (TV channel), FX black comedy crime drama series ''Fargo (TV series), Fargo''. Early life Turman was born in New York City. According to a genetic testing, DNA analysis, Turman shares maternal ancestry with the Edo people of Nigeria. Turman studied at High School of Performing Art ...
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