Guilty Pleasures
By Associated Press
The special Tony Award for educators goes to Baltimore community artist CJay Philip
NEW YORK | The special Tony Award that honors educators is going to a Baltimore-based actor, educator, choreographer and Broadway veteran who has created arts opportunities for everyone from kindergartners to senior citizens.
CJay Philip, founder and artistic director of the multidisciplinary ensemble Dance & Bmore, will receive the 2024 Excellence in Theatre Education Award on June 16 at the Tony Awards in New York City.
“There’s this power in the arts to reconnect us to one another and to our humanity,” she told The Associated Press ahead of the announcement. “There’s a civic duty that I have as a creative to contribute.”
Dance & Bmore has free programs for practically everyone, from preschoolers and their families to teens and adults of all ages, with its participants representing 20 of the 49 zip codes in Baltimore.
It’s AMP Camp introduces children in grades three to six to onstage and offstage production skills, like lighting design and stage management, letting them know “all of the opportunities that could be waiting them in theater and theater making from behind the scenes.”
Teens get to star and create Hardy’s adaptation of the opera “Carmen,” which travels around the city during the summer. AMP Up brings together youth and industry professionals as mentors to work on paid internships, resume-writing, job interview tips, financial literacy and creative writing. There are also music and movement programs for adults.
“We’re making deep, meaningful human connections through music, movement and theater at every age and stage of life. Dance & Bmore is creating a progression of programs that take you through a lifetime.”
The annual Excellence in Theatre Education Award bestowed by the Tony Awards and Carnegie Mellon University recognizes U.S. educators who have “demonstrated exemplary impact on the lives of students and who embodies the highest standards of the profession.”
Before moving to Baltimore in 2010, Philip began her career with the Maude Baum Modern Dance Company and Burundi African Dance in upstate New York. She later taught at the Baltimore School for the Arts and Baltimore Center Stage.
The Albany, New York, native made her Broadway debut in “Big the Musical” in 1996 and was dance captain for the original “Hairspray” directed by Jack O’Brien. She has toured as Lorrell in “Dreamgirls” and Paulette in “Legally Blonde.”
As a sign of her versatility and range, she was the second assistant stage manager in “Street Corner Symphony,” as well as ready-to-go-on for three of the leads at a moment’s notice and do split leaps.
“Literally I’ve been in a headset and turned around and seen the wig people running at me with a costume going, ‘Somebody’s going down, CJay. It is your time to shine.’”
Philip turned her experiences onstage into a performing arts school, taking notes all the time, asking questions and showing up at the theater on days she wasn’t expected just to soak it up.
“Mentorship was so much a key part of me becoming the type of performer that I wanted to be and the type of performer I respected. And so that’s how we teach with Dance & Bmore,” she says.
The award includes a $10,000 prize and a pair of tickets to the Tony ceremony and gala. Philip’s students will also receive a visiting master class taught by Carnegie Mellon drama professors.
A panel of judges comprised of the American Theatre Wing, The Broadway League, Carnegie Mellon and other leaders from the theater industry selects the winner, based on candidates submitted by the public.
“Her unwavering dedication to providing her students with a safe space to foster their knowledge of theatre and build their confidence, while actively creating inclusive and accessible roles and programs, has instilled a passion and respect for the performing arts in the generations to come,” Jason Laks, interim president of The Broadway League and Heather Hitchens, president and CEO of the American Theatre Wing, said in a statement.
Philip’s trip to New York City will be a homecoming, back to the world of Broadway she once performed in. One of the Tony nominees is Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer, who Philip worked with on “Hairspray.”
“It feels so full circle,” she says.
Usher, Victoria Monét will receive prestigious awards from music industry group ASCAP
LOS ANGELES | Usher will add another prestigious award to his already loaded trophy case.
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers said Thursday that Usher will receive its Voice of the Culture Award. He’ll be honored at ASCAP’s Rhythm & Soul Music Songwriters and Publishers event on June 27.
The honor Usher is receiving is presented to ASCAP members who have had a major influence on music and culture.
“Artistic development is a lifelong journey of experimentation that requires risk for reward, embracing unknowns, trusting your intuition, and believing in your creative vision and God given talent,” Usher said in a statement.
The R&B superstar is an eight-time Grammy winner who recently ended a two-year Las Vegas residency, “Usher: My Way” at the Park MGM. In February, he released his first solo album in eight years, and in August is scheduled to kick off a 24-city U.S. tour titled “Past Present Future.”
Usher’s Super Bowl halftime performance drew acclaim and included guest appearances by such stars as Alicia Keys, H.E.R., Jermaine Dupri, Lil Jon and Ludacris. His album “Confessions” has sold more than 10 million units in the U.S., ranking it among one of the best-selling music projects of all time. It launched No. 1 hits such as “Yeah!” with Ludacris and Lil Jon, “Burn” and “Confessions Part II.”
“It means the world to me that my peers, this community of passionate and distinguished songwriters, composers, and authors are inspired by my execution of the craft,” Usher added.
Singer Victoria Monét will be honored as well. She will receive the Vanguard Award, which recognizes members who are helping to shape the future of music.
Monét won three Grammys earlier this year, including best new artist and R&B album for “Jaguar II.”
“Victoria Monét has proven herself not only as an illuminating songwriter, but also as a flourishing artist and ASCAP member who continues to break barriers,” said Paul Williams, chairman of the board and president at ASCAP. “Her resilience, talent, and exemplary work ethic have helped her become a multi-award-winning singer and songwriter.”
Coates returns to nonfiction and explores the power of stories in upcoming ‘The Message’
NEW YORK | For his first all-new book of nonfiction in nearly a decade, Ta-Nehisi Coates traveled the world.
One World announced Thursday that Coates’ “The Message” will be published Oct. 1. “The Message” is set everywhere from the American South to the Middle East and Palestine and focuses on a single question: In a time of growing strife and injustice, why do stories matter?
“In ‘The Message,’ Coates explores this question by reporting from three powerfully resonant sites — Senegal, South Carolina, and Palestine — that have been profoundly shaped and riven by contested accounts of meaning and reality,” the One World announcement reads in part. “Weaving together on-the-ground reportage, personal narrative, and insightful dives into literature and history, he tries to clarify what’s real beneath layers of propaganda, wishful thinking, and enforced silence — and why we are so often misled, with sometimes catastrophic consequences.”
Additional details about “The Message” were not immediately available. In a statement released through One World, a Penguin Random House imprint, Coates said he was thrilled “to be back publishing nonfiction in this particular political moment.”
Coates’ last new work of nonfiction, “Between the World and Me,” was a meditation on racism and police violence that won the National Book Award in 2015 and was likened by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison to the works of James Baldwin. His books also include the 2017 essay collection “We Were Eight Years in Power,” drawn in part from his Atlantic magazine reporting during the Obama administration, and the 2019 novel “The Water Dancer,” an Oprah Winfrey book selection.
Gladwell takes fresh look at societal trends in ‘Revenge of the Tipping Point’
NEW YORK | Coming this fall: “The Tipping Point,” the sequel.
Little, Brown and Co. announced Wednesday that Malcolm Gladwell’s “Revenge Of the Tipping Point” will be published Oct. 1. The book arrives nearly a quarter-century after Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference,” his million-selling debut. Little, Brown is calling “Revenge of the Tipping Point” a “fresh perspective” on a variety of social issues.
“Why in the late 1980s and early ‘90s did Los Angeles become the bank robbery capital of the world? What is the Magic Third and what does it have to do with racial equity? What do big cats and clusters of teen suicide have in common?” the publisher’s announcement reads in part.
“These are just some of the questions Malcolm Gladwell addresses in this provocative new work, which revisits the phenomenon of social epidemics and examines the ways in which we have learned to tinker with and shape the spread of ideas, viruses, and trends — sometimes with great success, sometimes with disastrous consequences.”
Gladwell’s other books include “Blink,” “Outliers” and “The Bomber Mafia.” He is also a longtime New Yorker staff writer and host of the podcast “Revisionist History.”
—From AP reports
