The Shubert Organization, Inc., today announced that the 110-year-old Cort Theatre on 48th Street will become the James Earl Jones Theatre, in recognition of Mr. Jones’s lifetime of immense contributions to Broadway and the entire artistic community.
Jones, who is 91, began his Broadway career in 1957, and in 1958 Mr. Jones played his first role at the Cort Theatre in Sunrise at Campobello. Over the following six-and-a-half decades Jones rose to star in countless stage and screen productions (including twenty-one Broadway shows).
Jones’s Tony awards include Best Actor in a Play for The Great White Hope (1969) where he portrayed turn-of-the-century boxing champion Jack Johnson, and the original production of Fences (1987) by playwright August Wilson, as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.
Jones has additionally won seven Drama Desk Awards and has been awarded the National Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center Honor.
“The Shubert Organization is so incredibly honored to put James—an icon in the theatre community, the Black community, and the American community—forever in Broadway’s lights,” said Robert E. Wankel, Shubert CEO and board chair. “That James deserves to have his name immortalized on Broadway is without question.”
James Earl Jones (via Schubert.nyc)
“For me standing in this very building sixty-four years ago at the start of my Broadway career, it would have been inconceivable that my name would be on the building today,” said Mr. Jones of Shubert’s decision to rename the Cort Theatre in his honor. “Let my journey from then to now be an inspiration for all aspiring actors.”
Most recently Jones portrayed Weller Martin across from Cicely Tyson’s Fonsia Dorsey in the 2015 Broadway revival of The Gin Game at Shubert’s John Golden Theatre.
The Cort Theatre opened in 1912, having been designed in the style of an Eighteenth-Century French palace by renowned theatre architect Thomas Lamb to house productions of theatre impresario John Cort. The building was sold to the Shubert brothers in 1927.
Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcastis based on the Sunday, February 27 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 celebrates Marla Gibbs, 90, Executive Producer and star of NBC’s 227as well as the long-running CBS series The Jeffersons:
You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Sunday, February 27th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Even though she cleaned up during her unexpected star turn as no-nonsense housekeeper Florence Johnston on the hit CBS sitcom The Jeffersons, acting newcomer Marla Gibbs, then 41, was reluctant to give up her day job at United Airlines until the show became a bona fide hit.
Ten years later, Gibbs moved on up into the power seat when she bought the rights to star in and executive produce the TV version of a play entitled 227. The family comedy ran for five years on NBC and introduced the world to a young Regina King.
To learn more about Marla Gibbs, check out the links to sources provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
If you like our Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You could give us a positive rating or review, share your favorite episodes on social media, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodbinlacknews anywhere on social.
Today’s GBN Daily Drop Podcastis a bonus episode for Sunday, February 20, 2022 based on the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 format. It’s about Raven Wilkinson, who, when she joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, became the first African American ballerina to dance with a major company in the U.S:
You can also follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a bonus daily drop of Good Black News for Sunday, February 20th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Born in 1935, New York native Raven Wilkinson attended her first ballet when she was five years old, a performance of Coppélia, danced by the esteemed Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. From that moment on, Wilkinson wanted to be a ballerina. Fortunately, her parents were able to find her a teacher, and Wilkinson trained with Russian instructor Maria Swoboda, who was a former member of the Bolshoi Ballet.
Wilkinson eventually got the opportunity to audition for Ballet Russe, the same high-profile company which inspired her to dance. Ballet Russe was reluctant to hire Wilkinson, however, for fear of backlash when performing in the South.
Wilkinson nevertheless persisted, and by her fourth audition, Ballet Russe could no longer deny her talent and hired her, making Wilkinson the first African American woman to dance with a major ballet company in the U.S.
Her appearances in the South though, they did incur hostility and threats. Wilkinson was encouraged to wear pale makeup while dancing to “pass,” but she always refused to hide her race. The racism she did encounter did take its toll however, and Wilkinson stopped touring in the South and eventually everywhere.
A few years later in 1967, encouraged by Sylvester Campbell, another African-American dancer, Wilkinson auditioned with the Dutch National Ballet, got in, and stayed with the Netherlands-based troupe for seven years. Wilkinson then returned to New York and at nearly 40 joined the New York City Opera, serving first as a member of its ballet ensemble and then in other roles until she retired from performing altogether.
A mentor and friend to Misty Copeland, in 2015 Wilkinson attended Copeland’s debut in the lead role of Swan Lake, as she became the first African American principal dancer at an elite company, the American Ballet Theater in New York.
Wilkinson brought Copeland flowers onstage, and in 2019, Copeland paid tribute to Wilkinson in a video produced by The Root:
“Every black person that’s accomplished something incredible has had to endure some really awful things. I think that Raven is a very special case. Because I think that she was so good at making the worst situations into a learning experience or something that she made into a good situation. It’s amazing that we found each other and, and that it kind of just came full circle, you know, for her to be able to witness my promotion to principal dancer, to be able to have her come on to the stage during my curtain calls of my New York debut of Swan Lake was, was really overwhelming.
She told me she didn’t think she’d ever see a Black woman become a principal dancer in an elite company. To have her walk into events and walk into the ballet and for people to like, recognize her, and, and give her the due credit that she deserved all of these years. I think, again, it’s just kind of part of what I think my purpose was to be here. To tell the stories of all of these Black ballerinas, especially Raven’s. There’s just no real record of our existence through history. And the more stories we tell of Black dancers, the more that we can make it our history and make ballet our own.”
To learn even more about Raven Wilkinson, check out the 2016 documentaryBlack Ballerina in which Wilkinson is featured, Stillness Broken, the Columbia University School of Journalism student film about Wilkinson, the 2018 picture book based on her life titled Trailblazer: The Story of Ballerina Raven Wilkinson that includes a forward by Copeland, as well as several other sources provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a bonus daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com,Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot. Additional songs permitted under Public Domain license included were “The Festival Dance” from Coppelia composed by Delibes, and “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” from The Nutcracker composed by Tchaikovsky.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Today’s GBN Daily Drop Podcastis based on the Saturday, February 19 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 about the multi-talented former Disney Channel star, global box-office phenom and fashion icon Zendaya Coleman, in the category of what else… Black Girl Magic!
You can also follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Friday, February 18th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing. Today’s category? Black Girl Magic. The person? Zendaya.
“Euphoria” must describe the feeling Zendaya Coleman has on the regular. Not only did she become the youngest person ever to win a Primetime Emmy for Best Actress in a Drama Series in 2020 for her performance in HBO’s Euphoria, the multi-talented performer has landed Top 40 hits as a musical artist, starred in blockbusters such as Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home and The Greatest Showman—she can even do a convincing trapeze act!
The Duneand Malcolm and Marie star also claimed fashion icon status with various magazine covers, red carpet arrivals and the 2019 launch of her Zendaya x Tommy collection with Tommy Hilfiger.
To learn more about Oakland native Zendaya, check out the links to sources provided in today’s show notes or in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers. Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
According to Variety.com, Will Smith’s Westbrook Studios and David Oyelowo’s Yoruba Saxon have partnered with Netflix to produce the film adaptation of the upcoming book Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun by British-Nigerian author, journalist and hair care educator Tọlá Okogwu. Ola Shokunbi is set to write the film adaptation.
Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun tells the tale of a teenager who learns she has powers and travels to Nigeria to learn more about her origins, where she discovers a threat to her newfound magical community.
Described as Black Panther meets X-Men or Percy Jackson, the book is the first in an action-packed series for middle-grade children and will be published by Simon & Schuster in the U.S. and U.K. this June.
In 2021, Westbrook Studios produced the Academy Award-nominated film King Richard and most recently debuted the series Bel-Airon Peacock, the dramatic reboot the 1990s comedy series Fresh Prince of Bel Air that starred Smith.
Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcastis based on the Tuesday, February 15 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 and helps celebrate New York Fashion Week with a fun quote from Tony Award-winning director, filmmaker and playwright George C. Wolfe:
You can also follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Tuesday, February 15th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers. Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
GBN’s Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 is 50% off at workman.com with code:50CAL until 2/28/22
Even though most Americans think of today as Super Bowl Sunday, on GBN’s Daily Drop podcast bonus episode we instead celebrate what’s been the day’s other moniker since 2018 — #JanetJacksonAppreciationDay.
You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):
SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a bonus daily drop of Good Black News for Sunday, February 13th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Although today is known by most Americans as Super Bowl Sunday, for the past four years, thanks to Academy Award-winning filmmaker Matthew A. Cherry, it’s known among millions on Twitter and beyond as #JanetJacksonAppreciationDay.
#JanetJacksonAppreciationDay is where fans of Janet Jackson (aka “#JanFam”) flood their social media timelines with loving GIFs, memes, and videos of the legendary “Rhythm Nation” performer.
This annual trend began in 2018 in reaction to Justin Timberlake being invited to headline that year’s Super Bowl halftime. In 2004, when Jackson and Timberlake performed together at halftime, Jackson alone bore the blame for the “wardrobe malfunction” that occurred when Timberlake ripped a revealing part of her costume.
The moment that came to be called “Nipplegate” sparked controversy and damaged Jackson’s career for years while Timberlake’s soared.
Today’s #JanetJacksonAppreciationDay is particularly special because just a few weeks ago, the four-part documentary Janet Jackson and brother Randy Jackson executive produced on her life and career aired in the U.S. on Lifetime and A&E. In it, Janet shared footage and information from her life and career that had never seen or heard before by the public.
The widely watched doc set off a current surge of appreciation for Jackson’s contributions to popular culture in the following ways:
top ratings in the U.S. and airings across the globe
As a #JanFam member myself since childhood – from Good Times, Diff’rent Strokes, the early albums and on – well, today I personally would like to appreciate Janet Jackson who, since 1989, has used her music to tackle and highlight issues such as racism, sexism, illiteracy, domestic violence and homophobia.
Currently, Janet is selling her vintage tour swag on The Real Realto support the non-profit organization Girls Leadership, which teaches girls to exercise the power of their voices through programs grounded in social emotional learning.
There’s also an awesome podcast called Janet Today, Janet Tomorrow, Janet Forever where cousins Courtney and Kam discuss Janet’s music and videos song by song, as well as conduct fun and informative interviews with musicians, dancers, stylists and the like who have worked with Janet throughout her career.
And of course, you can always jump on social yourself and add to or check out the #JanetJacksonAppreciationDay tributes that are all for her! Links to everything I mentioned and more are provided in today’s show notes.
This has been an extra-long bonus daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.
American Cinema Editors (ACE) announced today that film editor Lillian E. Benson, ACE the first woman of color invited to join ACE, will receive the institution’s Career Achievement Award for her outstanding contributions to film editing at the 72nd Annual ACE Eddie Awards on March 5.
Benson has been an integral part of the organization and its growth. She has served on its Board of Directors for over two decades and has been instrumental in helping ACE expand and diversify its reach.
An Emmy® nominee for the Peabody, Dupont and Emmy® Award-winning PBS documentary series “Eyes on the Prize,” which chronicled the civil rights movement from 1952-1985, Benson is currently editing the highly successful procedural “Chicago Med,” which she has been working on for six seasons.
Other notable documentary projects Benson has edited include “Beyond the Steps: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater,” “Motown 40: The Music is Forever,” “A Century of Living,” “Conscience and the Constitution,” “Smothered: The Censorship Struggles of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” “Craft in America” and “All Our Sons: Fallen Heroes of 9/11.”
In 2016 Benson edited “Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise” about the American poet’s resiliency in life and her impact on America.
Other credits include “Greenleaf” for OWN, Debbie Allen’s “Old Settler,” and “Life is Not a Fairytale: The Fantasia Barrino Story,” the Showtime series “Soul Food” and the feature film “All About You.”
Benson’s personal favorite in her rich career was editing “John Lewis: Get in the Way.” Benson said, “This documentary is the thing I love the most of anything I’ve ever done. I feel I was born to cut it. It was released a couple of years before he died and was the first documentary done about his life. I love Lewis because he was a warrior his entire life. He never wavered. He did what he could. He forgave people; people I couldn’t forgive. He always had the bigger picture in mind.”
Richard Chew, ACE (photo courtesy ACE)
Richard Chew, ACE will also be receiving the Career Achievement Award at the 2022 ceremony. Chew’s body of work includes“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Star Wars” (for which he won the Oscar® for Best Film Editing with his co-editors Marcia Lucas and Paul Hirsch, ACE), “Risky Business, “Mi Vida Loca, “Waiting to Exhale,” “Hope Floats,” “That Thing You Do!” and “Shanghai Noon.”
“Lillian and Richard are rock star editors and represent the very best of our craft and profession,” stated ACE president Kevin Tent, ACE. “Just look at those credits! Not only have they had incredibly prolific careers, but they’ve given back to our community in many ways, not the least of which by mentoring the next generation of editors. We are thrilled to honor these two special editors and look back at their amazing careers.”
About American Cinema Editors American Cinema Editors (ACE) is an honorary society of motion picture editors founded in 1950. Film editors are voted into membership on the basis of their professional achievements, their dedication to the education of others and their commitment to the craft of editing.
The objectives and purposes of the AMERICAN CINEMA EDITORS are to advance the art and science of the editing profession; to increase the entertainment value of motion pictures by attaining artistic preeminence and scientific achievement in the creative art of editing; to bring into close alliance those editors who desire to advance the prestige and dignity of the editing profession.
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Spike Lee will be honored with the lifetime achievement award for his contributions to motion picture direction from the Directors Guild of America (DGA), according to Variety.com. The award is the organization’s top hono\.
“Icon. Trailblazer. Visionary. Spike Lee has changed the face of cinema, and there is no single word that encapsulates his significance to the craft of directing,” said Lesli Linka Glatter, president of the DGA. “From his groundbreaking Do the Right Thing, BlacKkKlansman and everything in between — to his signature ‘double dolly’ shot, Spike is an innovator on so many levels. His bold and passionate storytelling over the past three decades has masterfully entertained, as it held a stark mirror to our society and culture.”
New York University film school alum Lee began his motion picture directing career by helming the independently produced She’s Gotta Have It, released in 1986, which in 2017 was adapted into a series for Netflix and in n 2019, was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.
Some of Lee’s other notable films are School Daze, Mo Better Blues, Malcolm X, Jungle Fever, He Got Game, Clockers, Inside Man, Girl 6, Get on The Busand his most recent release, Da 5 Bloods on Netflix.
Lee has also directed several award-winning documentaries, including 1997’s 4 Little Girlsabout the Alabama church bombings in 1963, and 2006’s When the Levees Broke, about Hurricane Katrina and the injustices and devastation it wrought on New Orleans and its Black and low-income communities.
Only 35 directors have been honored with the DGA lifetime achievement award since it started in 1953 (Cecil B. DeMille was the first recipient).
Lee is the first Black director to receive the award which will be given at the DGA’s 74th annual awards ceremony on March 12.
Hey, it’s Lori, GBN’s Editor-in-Chief, stepping in with this week’s Music Monday share. It’s a list I created for myself at the beginning of 2021 called “VIBES: Cuts for the ‘Chill’ Room” to help me keep it together after almost a full year of lockdown.
The vaccines were being rolled out, and the pandemic’s end seemed to be in sight. We all just had to chill a little bit longer.
Whelp. Here we are again, another year gone and still struggling with this beast of a global health challenge. So it seems appropriate to turn to my “chill music” playlist once again, and to share it this time, as we collectively grapple with the latest surge:
When I say “chill music,” I’m talking about the kinds of songs you’d hear in the “chill room” of a rave. Back in the 1990s when raves were at their zenith, they were often held in spaces with multiple floors or rooms.
A “chill room” gave partygoers an option to briefly escape the pounding “thumpa thumpa” and the steamy sweat generated on the main dance floor. The music played in there was on the low-key side, but still kept the vibe and pulse of the night going.
Chill room music allowed you to cool down, chillax, maybe even have a conversation with friends or fellow club lovers before going back into the space where the pounding sounds practically replaced the pounding of your own heartbeats.
This playlist features artists from those days such as Soul II Soul, Sade, Jamiroquai, Dimitri in Paris, Blue Six, Supreme Beings of Leisure, Air, Massive Attack and Mr. Fingers, plus artists like Roy Ayers whose earlier 1970s cuts (e.g. “Everybody Loves The Sunshine”) inspired much “chill room”-style music to come.
Contemporary artists Solange, Lucky Daye, Chloe X Halle, Moon Boots, Yasmin Lacey, Drake, Trackademiks, Mr. Day, Esperanza Spalding, Janelle Monae, The Internet, H.E.R., Amber Mark and Thundercat are also represented in this mix.
I personally listen to this one whenever I need to grab a moment of mellow, yet still be focused. I find it a great list to write to, pay bills… to let it be my steady, toned down pulse as I relax, refresh and reset before re-entering the “main floor.”
