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WORK TITLE: Take You Wherever You Go
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 2/10/1956
WEBSITE: http://www.kennyleon.com/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY: American
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born February 10, 1956, in Tallahassee, FL.
EDUCATION:Clark Atlanta University; Southwest University School of Law, Los Angeles, CA.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Broadway stage and television director. Alliance Theatre Company, Atlanta, GA, artistic director, 1988-2000; Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company, founder; Denzel Washington Endowed Chair in Theatre at Fordham University.
AWARDS:Drama League of New York, Julia Hansen Award for Excellence in Directing, 2010; Tony Award, Best Direction of a Play and Best Revival, for A Raisin in the Sun, 2014; Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation, Mr. Abbott Award, 2016; Governor’s Award for the Arts and Humanities for the State of Georgia, 2017.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Kenny Leon is a Tony Award-winning Broadway stage and television director. He has worked on various plays, including Children of a Lesser God, The Mountain, Stick Fly, and Holler If Ya Hear Me, and on television shows, such as the Dynasty reboot, Steel Magnolias, The Wiz Live!, and Hairspray Live! His work on A Raisin in the Sun won him a Tony Award for Directing in 2014. In 1988, Leon was one of the few African Americans to head a prominent nonprofit theater company when he was the artistic director of Alliance Theatre Company in Atlanta. Leon wrote the foreword for Stewart F. Lane’s 2015 book Black Broadway: African Americans on the Great White Way, which chronicles people of color during a century of performance, entertainment, and Broadway.
In 2018, Leon wrote his memoir, Take You Wherever You Go, which brings him from a small wooden house in rural Tallahassee, Florida to the Tony Awards’ stage. He honors his wise Grandma Mamie who raised him when his mother left to work in St. Petersburg. Leon presents lessons he learned from Mamie, her encouragement and advice to “take you wherever you go,” and her determination that her children and grandchildren would have a better life. His conservative Christian mother Annie Ruth gave him a moral compass. Leon also describes his work as an actor and director, his work with American playwright August Wilson and Wilson’s artistic and social influence, efforts to bring diversity to theater, and the founding his own company, Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company.
For his Broadway revival of A Raisin in the Sun starring Denzel Washington and Sophie Okonedo, he explained to Steve Inskeep in an interview online at NPR: “There are things that have happened in America in the last ten years; you know, an African-America president, racism, in terms of Trayvon Martin and the likes, the housing market bubble. We’re an international world now; we really have to understand the entire world, which Lorraine [Hansberry] was writing about in 1958. So it’s an exciting time to do a revival of this particular play.”
In his memoir, Leon also discusses his admiration of actors he’s worked with, such as Angela Bassett and Samuel L. Jackson. “Offering a well-rounded look at his successful life, Leon’s memoir is self-reflective and encouraging to those who might harbor self-doubts about their own abilities and pursuits,” according to a Kirkus Reviews contributor. A Publishers Weekly writer said: “Leon delivers revealing personal stories of theatrical success in this uplifting memoir.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2018, review of Take You Wherever You Go.
Publishers Weekly, May 14, 2018, review of Take You Wherever You Go, p. 50.
ONLINE
NPR, http://www.wbur.org/ (April 8, 2014), Steve Inskeep, “Broadway Director Kenny Leon Opens Theater Doors to New Audiences,” author interview.
Kenny Leon is a Tony Award-winning Broadway stage and television director who is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2010 Julia Hansen Award for Excellence in Directing by the Drama League of New York and the prestigious "Mr. Abbott" Award. His Broadway credits include the revivals of A Raisin in the Sun, Fences, and Children of a Lesser God and The Mountaintop, Stick Fly, and Holler If Ya Hear Me. His recent television work includes episodes of the Dynasty reboot, Steel Magnolias, The Wiz Live!, and Hairspray Live!
Kenny Leon
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Kenny Leon
Born
February 10, 1956 (age 62)[1]
Tallahassee, Florida
Alma mater
Clark Atlanta University
Occupation
theatre, television director
Kenny Leon is an American director notable for his work on Broadway and in regional theater. Robert Simonson of Playbill described Leon as "arguably Broadway's leading African-American director."[2] In 2014, he won the Tony Award for Best Director of a Play for A Raisin in the Sun.[3]
Contents [hide]
1
Career
2
Works
2.1
Stage
2.2
Television
3
References
4
External links
Career[edit]
He gained prominence in 1988, when he became one of the few African Americans to head a notable nonprofit theater company as the artistic director of Atlanta's Alliance Theatre Company.[4] During Leon's tenure, the company staged premieres of Pearl Cleage's Blues for an Alabama Sky, Alfred Uhry's The Last Night of Ballyhoo, and Elton John and Tim Rice's musical Aida, which went on to Broadway. The Alliance's endowment also rose from $1 to $5 million during his time there.
Leon resigned from the Alliance in 2000 to take on other projects. These included being the co-founder and artistic director of True Colors Theater Company,[5] a group based in both Atlanta and Washington, D.C. He also took his talents to Broadway. In the spring of 2004 he directed a revival of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, starring Sean Combs, Phylicia Rashad and Audra McDonald in his Broadway debut. At the end of that year, he directed the Broadway premiere of August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean. In spring 2007, he directed August Wilson's Radio Golf. All three plays were nominated for Tony awards, and Leon was a Drama Desk Award nominee for A Raisin in the Sun. He also directed the television version of A Raisin in the Sun, which aired on ABC in February 2008. He was nominated for a Tony Award in 2010 for Best Director for his work on August Wilson's Fences, starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, earning them both nominations and wins for Best Performance for Male and Female in a Play.
In November 2010, Leon directed Phylicia Rashad in the world premiere stage play Every Tongue Confess written by Marcus Gardley, which ran at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.
Leon has also directed plays at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, the Huntington Theater Company in Boston, the New York Shakespeare Festival, and the Goodman Theater in Chicago among many others.
In January 2012, he completed a Lifetime Original Television remake of Steel Magnolias.[1] Other projects includes the world premier of a staged adaptation of the 1967 film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner at the Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre Company; and a musical inspired by the work of rapper Tupac Shakur.[6]
In 2014, he directed the Broadway revival of A Raisin in the Sun starring Denzel Washington and LaTanya Richardson Jackson and the Broadway premiere of the musical Holler If Ya Hear Me, featuring the discography of Tupac Shakur. Leon won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for his work on A Raisin in the Sun.[7] That same year Mr. Leon directed NPR Presents Water±, written by award-winning NPR Science Correspondent Christopher Joyce, and award-winning theater writers Arthur Yorinks and Carl Hancock Rux with an original sound score by violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR). The show toured nationally, co-hosted by NPR's Michele Norris and WWNO's Eve Troeh and featuring Tony Award-winner Anika Noni Rose (Caroline, or Change); Tony Award-nominee Michele Shay (August Wilson's Seven Guitars); Jason Dirden (Tony Award-winning production A Raisin in the Sun); and Lucas Caleb Rooney (Boardwalk Empire).[8]
In 2015, Leon directed the live musicalThe Wiz for NBC. Cirque du Soleil is partnering on the production with plans to bring the show to Broadway. He is slated to direct both the television production and Broadway revival.[9] In 2016, Leon once again partnered with NBC for "Hairspray: Live!", starring Ariana Grande, Jennifer Hudson, Kristin Chenoweth, and Harvey Fierstein.[10]
Leon participated in the federally funded TRIO Upward Bound college-prep program while in high school. He is a graduate of Clark Atlanta University. In addition to his directing experience, he has extensive acting experience on stage and in television and film. He made an appearance in the Hollywood Black Film Festival winner Big Ain't Bad, playing the role of Thomas Jordan, the mayor of Atlanta. In 2004, People named him one of the "50 Most Beautiful People" of the year. In 2007, he was a recipient of the 2007 Georgia Arts and Entertainment Legacy Award for his contributions to Georgia's cultural legacy.[11]
Leon was awarded the 2016-2017 "Mr. Abbott" Award for outstanding artistry and creativity which is presented by the Stage Directors and Choreographers (SDC) Foundation, recognition for his over 40-year career. In October 2017, Leon was the recipient the Governor's Award for the Arts and Humanities for the State of Georgia.[12]
He currently holds the Denzel Washington Endowed Chair in Theatre at Fordham University, previously held by Joe Morton and Phylicia Rashad[13]
Works[edit]
Stage[edit]
1991 Driving Miss Daisy
1991 Spirit of Atlanta
1991 Miss Evers' Boys
1992 So Long on Lonely Street
1992 Playland
1993 A Streetcar Named Desire
1993 Two Trains Running
1995 Blues for an Alabama Sky
1996 The Last Night of Ballyhoo
1998 Aida
2004 A Raisin in the Sun
2004 Gem of the Ocean
2005 Margaret Garner
2007 Radio Golf
2010 Every Tongue Confess
2010 Fences
2011 The Mountaintop
2011 Stick Fly
2014 A Raisin in the Sun (Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play)
2014 Holler If Ya Hear Me
2016 Smart People
2017 Holler If Ya Hear Me
Television[edit]
2008 A Raisin in the Sun
2009 Ghost Whisperer Episode: "Excessive Forces"
2010 Private Practice Episode: "'Til Death Do Us Part"
2011 Private Practice Episode: "Heaven Can Wait"
2012 Steel Magnolias
2014 In My Dreams
2015 The Wiz Live!
2016 Hairspray Live!
1990 In The Heat Of The Night "Hello In There"
KENNY LEON (Director) is a Tony Award winning Broadway and film director. His Broadway credits include the 2014 revival of A Raisin in the Sun starring Denzel Washington(Tony Award Winner for Best Direction of a Play and Best Revival), The Mountaintop starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett, Stick Fly produced by Alicia Keys, August Wilson's Fences (which garnered ten Tony nominations and won three Tony Awards including Best Revival), the 2004 revival of A Raisin in the Sun with Sean P. Diddy Combs, Gem of the Ocean, Radio Golf and the 2014 premiere of Holler if You Hear Me, a new musical created using the music of Tupac Shakur. Leon's recent film work includes "In My Dreams" for Hallmark Hall of Fame, "The Watsons go to Birmingham" for Walden Media and Hallmark, and the Sony and Lifetime TV adaptation of "Steel Magnolias". Leon is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2010 Julia Hansen Award for Excellence in Directing by the Drama League of New York.
Mr. Leon is the Artistic Director of Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia. Prior to co-founding True Colors Theatre Company, he served 11 years as Artistic Director of the Alliance Theatre, where he produced the premieres of Disney's Elaborate Lives: The Legend of Aida, Pearl Cleage's Blues for an Alabama Sky and Alfred Uhry's The Last Night of Ballyhoo. Other directorial credits include Alicia Keys World Tour, Toni Morrison's opera, Margaret Garner, the world premiere of Flashdance, The Musical, and the complete August Wilson Century Cycle at the Kennedy Center. Leon is a sought after motivational speaker that has done acting and theatre workshops at universities and corporate offices around the country, South Africa and Ireland. He has directed in England, and extensively throughout the US, including Chicago's Goodman Theatre, Boston's Huntington Theatre, Baltimore's Center Stage, Los Angeles' Center Theatre Group and New York's Public Theatre. Leon is a graduate of Clark Atlanta and is an honorary Ph.D. recipient of Clark Atlanta and Roosevelt Universities. He is currently serving as the Denzel Washington Chair at Fordhom University
Broadway Director Kenny Leon Opens Theater Doors To New Audiences. By: Jeff Lunden, Morning Edition (NPR), 04/08/2014
Stage director Kenny Leon is one of the most sought-after creative talents on Broadway today, even if he isn't a household name. He's guided Denzel Washington and Viola Davis to Tony Awards in a Tony-winning revival of August Wilson's Fences, he directed Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett in The Mountaintop and he's got two Broadway shows opening within three months of each other.
You've got to have an ego, to be a director, sitting in rehearsal rooms with talented, opinionated actors. But Kenny Leon's productions are kind of ego-less, says Atlanta-based playwright Pearl Cleage, who's worked with the director on several new plays.
"He isn't really someone who's trying to superimpose a flashy vision, so that people will gasp and say 'Oh, the director was this and the director was that,' " says Cleage. "He's actually trying to get to the heart — the real heart — of these people that the playwright has created."
Ten years ago, Kenny Leon made his Broadway debut with characters created by Lorraine Hansberry; he directed A Raisin in the Sun with Sean Combs, Audra McDonald and Phylicia Rashad. Now, he's back on Broadway, with a completely different production of the same play.
Kenny Leon is the director of many Broadway plays and television adaptations. (Courtesy of Boneau/Bryan-Brown)
"You know, 10 years later, I'm a better artist," says Leon. "There are things that have happened in America in the last 10 years; you know, an African-American president, racism, in terms of Trayvon Martin and the likes, the housing market bubble. We're an international world now; we really have to understand the entire world, which Lorraine was writing about in 1958. So, it's an exciting time to do a revival of this particular play."
This time, Denzel Washington and Sophie Okonedo star as the leads. For the role of Beneatha Younger, the character Lorraine Hansberry based on herself, Leon cast Tony-winner Anika Noni Rose. She previously worked with Leon on a television movie and says his style is very intuitive.
"Kenny works differently than other directors that I've worked with. He likes to put you on your feet very early. I find that disconcerting," Rose says, laughing. "But, you know, you work with people who work differently all the time."
By putting actors on their feet, Leon dispenses with what's known as "table work," where the actors and director spend several days sitting around a table analyzing the text.
"I would rather find out if you can't deliver it and then we can adjust to what you can do," says Leon. "Let's not talk theoretically about the play. I like actors to go home, do your homework, come into the rehearsal hall and bump your ideas against each other, and then it's like we discover something that nobody had."
A Raisin in the Sun is about a poor, working-class Chicago family that wants to move from a cramped apartment to a small house. In this production, David Cromer plays the character who tries convince the family not to move into his all-white neighborhood. Cromer's also an award-winning director, on- and off-Broadway, and says he's enjoyed watching Leon at work.
"He's very open, he's very interested in what people have to say," says Cromer. "He doesn't hold forth about things. Kenny's not going to give a long lecture on what it means, but by the end of the conversation, everybody knows we're all talking about the same thing."
Even before Leon started directing on Broadway, he had a long history in the theater. He's worked as an actor — and still does — and he ran the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta from 1988 to 2000. He was one of the first African-American artistic directors of a major regional theater, says Cleage.
"He really took on the burden of changing that institution in the best possible way," says Cleage. "He opened it up to people who had never really felt welcome there; artists, audience members, people from within the Atlanta community, people from outside of Atlanta who had never really thought about coming here to do theater."
The director left the Alliance to found his own company: Atlanta's True Colors Theatre. Leon says he has two criteria: Does the play tell a good story? And will it appeal to a wide audience?
"I've always liked that idea of a diverse group of audience members sitting together, rubbing up against each other and taking on the life of a culture that doesn't belong to either one of them," says Leon.
The music of Tupac Shakur, shown here in 1993, inspired the upcoming Broadway musical Holler If Ya Hear Me. (AP)
Leon's next Broadway project is Holler If Ya Hear Me, a musical based on the songs and poetry of Tupac Shakur. The controversial rapper was killed in a drive-by shooting almost two decades ago. Leon calls him a prophet, but knows his music will be a hard sell on Broadway.
"And we're gonna be at the Palace Theatre, which is where Annie was. And so, to me, to have Holler If Ya Hear Me in the same place that Annie played, it's like, that's what America is about," says Leon. "And I just want folks to give us half a chance. And if they give us half a chance, if they come through the doors, it's gonna be a powerful evening of theater."
Kenny Leon has precious little downtime in the next few months. A Raisin in the Sun is currently up and running. He'll have a Hallmark movie, In My Dreams, on ABC TV on April 20. Holler If Ya Hear Me opens on June 19. And in July, Leon stars with actress Phylicia Rashad in Same Time, Next Year in Atlanta.
STEVE INSKEEP: Countless tourists in New York have seen the work of Kenny Leon, though they could easily overlook his name.
DAVID GREENE: Leon is a director on Broadway. He's directed A-list actors like Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett in "The Mountaintop."
INSKEEP: Denzel Washington and Viola Davis both won Tony Awards in Leon's revival of August Wilson's "Fences." And now he has two Broadway shows opening within a few months of each other.
Jeff Lunden has this profile.
JEFF LUNDEN: You've got to have an ego to be a director, sitting in rehearsal rooms with talented, opinionated actors. But Kenny Leon's productions are kind of egoless, says Atlanta-based playwright Pearl Cleage who's worked with the director on several new plays.
PEARL CLEAGE: He isn't really someone who's trying to superimpose a flashy vision, so that people will gasp and say: Oh, the director was this and the director was that. He's actually trying to get to the heart - the real heart - of these people that the playwright has created.
LUNDEN: Ten years ago, Kenny Leon made his Broadway debut with characters created by Lorraine Hansberry. He directed "A Raisin in the Sun" with Sean Combs, Audra McDonald and Phylicia Rashad. Now he's back on Broadway, with a completely different production.
KENNY LEON: You know, 10 years later, I'm a better artist There are things that have happened in America in the last 10 years; you know, an African-America president, racism, in terms of Trayvon Martin and the likes, the housing market bubble. We're an international world now; we really have to understand the entire world, which Lorraine was writing about in 1958. So it's an exciting time to do a revival of this particular play.
LUNDEN: This time, it stars Denzel Washington and Sophie Okonedo as the leads.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "A RAISIN IN THE SUN")
SOPHIE OKONEDO: (as Ruth Younger) Walter, eat your eggs. It's going to get cold.
DENZEL WASHINGTON: (as Walter Lee Younger) See there? Man say to his woman: I got me a dream, baby. Woman says: Eat your eggs. Man says: I got to take a hold of this world. Woman says: Eat your eggs. Go to work. Man says: I got to change my life, I'm choking to death. Woman says: Your eggs are getting cold.
OKONEDO: (as Ruth Younger) Oh, that ain't none of our money.
WASHINGTON: (as Walter Lee Younger) This morning, I'm in the mirror I'm thinking: I'm 40 years old, I've been married 11 years and I got a boy who sleeps in the living room, and all I've got to give him is nothing. Nothing but stories about how rich white people live.
OKONEDO: (as Ruth Younger) Eat your eggs, Walter.
WASHINGTON: (as Walter Lee Younger) Damn, my eggs.
LUNDEN: For the role of Beneatha Younger, the character Lorraine Hansberry based on herself, Leon cast Tony winner Anika Noni Rose. She previously worked with Leon on a television movie and says his style is very intuitive.
ANIKA NONI ROSE: Kenny works differently than other directors that I've worked with. He likes to put you on your feet very early. I find that disconcerting.
(LAUGHTER)
ROSE: But, you know, you work with people who work differently all the time.
LUNDEN: By putting actors on their feet, Leon dispenses with what's known as table work, where the actors and director spend several days sitting around a table analyzing the text.
LEON: I would rather find out, early on, if you can't deliver it and then we can adjust to what you can do. Let's not talk theoretically about the play. I like actors to go home, do your homework, come into the rehearsal hall and bump your ideas against each other. And then, it's like, we discover something that nobody had.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "A RAISIN IN THE SUN")
ROSE: (as Beneatha Younger) The ambulance came and they took him to the hospital. And they fixed up the broken bones and they sewed it all up. And the next time I saw Rufus, he just had a little line down the middle of his face. I never got over that.
SEAN PATRICK THOMAS: (as Joseph Asagai) What?
ROSE: (as Beneatha Younger) That was what one human being could do for another, Fix him up. You know, and sew up the problem, make him all right again. It was the most marvelous thing in the world and I wanted to do that.
LUNDEN: "A Raisin in the Sun" is about a poor working-class Chicago family that wants to move from a cramped apartment to a small house. In this production, David Cromer, plays the character who tries convince the family not to move into his all-white neighborhood. Cromer's also an award-winning director, on and off Broadway, and says he's enjoyed watching Leon at work.
DAVID CROMER: He's very open. He's very interested in what people have to say. He doesn't, like, hold forth about things. Kenny is not going to give, like, a long lecture on what it means. But by the end of the conversation, everybody knows we're all talking about the same thing.
LUNDEN: Even before Kenny Leon started directing on Broadway, he had a long history in the theater. He's worked as an actor, and still does, and ran the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta from 1988 to 2000. He was one of the first African-American artistic directors of a major regional theater, says playwright Pearl Cleage.
CLEAGE: He really took on the burden of changing that institution in the best possible way. He opened it up to people who had never really felt welcome there; artists, audience members, people from within the Atlanta community, people from outside of Atlanta who had never really thought about coming here to do theater.
LUNDEN: The director left the alliance to found his own company: Atlanta's True Colors Theatre. Leon says he has two criteria: does the play tell a good story and will it appeal to a wide audience?
LEON: I've always liked that idea of a diverse group of audience members sitting together, rubbing up against each other, and taking on the life of a culture that doesn't belong to either one of them.
LUNDEN: Leon's next Broadway project is "Holla If Ya Hear Me," a musical based on the songs and poetry of Tupac Shakur.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOLLA IF YA HEAR ME")
TUPAC SHAKUR: Here we go, turn it up, let's start. From block to block, we snatching hearts and jacking marks...
LUNDEN: The controversial rapper was killed in a drive-by shooting, almost two decades ago. Leon calls him a prophet, but knows his music will be a hard sell on Broadway.
LEON: We're going to be at the Palace Theatre, which is where "Annie" was. And so, to me, to have "Holla If Ya Hear Me" in the same place that "Annie" played, that's what America is about. And I just want folks to give us half a chance. And if they give us half a chance, if they come through the doors, it's going to be a powerful evening of theater.
LUNDEN: Kenny Leon has precious little downtime in the next few months. "A Raisin in the Sun" is currently up and running. He'll have a Hallmark movie on ABC TV on April 20th. "Holla If Ya Hear Me" opens on June 19th. And in July, Leon stars with actress Phylicia Rashad in "Same Time, Next Year" in Atlanta.
For NPR News, I'm Jeff Lunden in New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOLLA IF YA HEAR ME")
SHAKUR: (Rapping) Holla if you hear me, the rebel. Holla if you hear me. Hard...
INSKEEP: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
GREENE: And I'm David Greene.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOLLA IF YA HEAR ME")
SHAKUR: (Rapping) Hard, the rebel. Holla, if you hear me. Hard, the rebel. Holla if you hear me. Will I quit? Will I quit? They claim that I'm violent, but still I keep representing, never give up, on a good thing. Wouldn't stop it if we could, it's a hood thing. And now I'm like a major threat 'cause I remind you of the things you were made to forget. Bring the noise, to all my boys. Know the real from the bustas and the decoys. And if you hustle like a real G, pump your fists if you feel me, holla if ya hear me...
Leon, Kenny: TAKE YOU WHEREVER YOU GO
Kirkus Reviews. (Apr. 15, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Leon, Kenny TAKE YOU WHEREVER YOU GO Grand Central Publishing (Adult Nonfiction) $26.00 6, 5 ISBN: 978-1-5387-4497-0
A Tony Award-winning director pays loving tribute to his grandmother as he covers the broad scope of his life.
Leon's Grandma Mamie had a hard life. She raised 13 children and then took in Leon when he was 4 and kept him for four years while his mother found her own way in the world. Prayer and the belief that her children and grandchildren could have a better life than she had had kept Mamie going, and she pushed Leon to always do his best. "[She] put in those endless days of work and effort," writes the author, "and her kids never missed a meal. She led that life, that hard, country life, without the comfort of a partnership and some love coming back." Leon's love and devotion to his grandmother are evident throughout the narrative of his childhood and his rise through the ranks as an actor and director. The author discusses her cooking, her clothing and colorful hats, the way she talked, and how she almost always had visitors and was happy to throw together a meal for them. He shares his personal doubts and fears as he worked first as an actor and then as a director in the Alliance Theater in Atlanta. He also writes about his relationships with women, his professional working relationship with the playwright August Wilson, his endeavors to bring more diversity to the stage, and the founding of his own theater company, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre Company. The author, who won a Tony for his direction of A Raisin in the Sun in 2014, shows how the supportive words and actions of his closest family members instilled in him a strong confidence in his ability to dream big and overcome the obstacles in his path.
Offering a well-rounded look at his successful life, Leon's memoir is self-reflective and encouraging to those who might harbor self-doubts about their own abilities and pursuits.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Leon, Kenny: TAKE YOU WHEREVER YOU GO." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Apr. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A534375207/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=1042675b. Accessed 7 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A534375207
Take You Wherever You Go: A Memoir
Publishers Weekly. 265.20 (May 14, 2018): p50+.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Take You Wherever You Go: A Memoir
Kenny Leon. Grand Central, $26 (240p) ISBN 978-1-5387-4497-0
Tony Award--winning director Leon assesses the long journey from his modest Florida upbringing to his professional success, including receiving the best director award for his 2014 revival of A Raisin in the Sun. Leon was born in Tallahassee in 1956 and raised by his grandmother while his mother worked in St. Petersburg. Among the women who influenced him were his Grandma Mamie, who had a "simple, direct, endearing" approach to life, and Annie Ruth, his conservative Christian mother who gave him a moral compass. Leon graduated from Clark Atlanta University, then attended Southwest University School of Law in L.A., "starting and stopping" his education and doing undercover security work ("snitching on people at various job sites"); he returned to Atlanta jobless, but began focusing on theater. Leon glows when speaking of his time at Atlanta's Alliance Theater, even if his tenure began by receiving a letter that read, "When we come to the theater, we come to support our own kind. Not some pushy, uppity coon." Throughout, Leon celebrates the many actors and directors he worked with or admired, including Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson (who contributed the book's foreword), and his idol, playwright August Wilson, whose Fences he directed on Broadway. Leon delivers revealing personal stories of theatrical success in this uplifting memoir. Agent: CaitHoyt, Creative Artists Agency. (July)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Take You Wherever You Go: A Memoir." Publishers Weekly, 14 May 2018, p. 50+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A539387459/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d1c47246. Accessed 7 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A539387459
Black Broadway: African-Americans on the Great White Way
Publishers Weekly. 262.2 (Jan. 12, 2015): p54.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2015 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Black Broadway: African-Americans on the Great White Way
Stewart F. Lane. Square One, $39.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-7570-0388-2
Filled with black-and-white photos and illustrations, this richly informative book by six-time Tony Award-winning Broadway producer Lane honors the legacy of determined African-American performers and ground-breaking productions, spanning from the polarizing early years of the minstrel shows through the vaudeville heyday of the 1880s and to the glittering Jazz Age of the 1920s, the post-World War II era of the 1950s, and the 1960s. The book, supported by a foreword by noted Broadway producer Kenny Leon, highlights such entertainers as Ira Aldridge, Bert Williams, George Walker, the Whitman sisters, Scott Joplin, Paul Robeson, Eubie Blake, Noble Sissle, Ethel Waters, Florence Mills, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Sidney Poitier, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, August Wilson, Gregory Hines, and Audra McDonald, all dedicated to altering social and political attitudes. With photo stills and original theater-bill cover art, this is a wonderful, insightful history of black theater. (Feb.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Black Broadway: African-Americans on the Great White Way." Publishers Weekly, 12 Jan. 2015, p. 54. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A397578947/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ef2b4af7. Accessed 7 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A397578947