Dee, Baraka, Etc. to Take Part in Rebel Theater Benefit

Rebel Theater Company Inc. has announced "A Night of Artistic Inspiration" celebrating Rebel Theater's first anniversary. The celebration will take place on Friday, August 25th, 2006 in the theater at the Julia de Burgos Latino Performing Arts Center  (1680 Lexington Avenue on 106th Street).  Among scheduled guest speakers will be Drama Desk Award-winning actress Ruby Dee (A Raisin in the Sun) and poet/playwright/activist Amiri Baraka.

"A Night of Artistic Inspiration" will begin with the Anniversary Reception from 7 - 8 PM, followed by an Arts Night awards ceremony with an array of artistic performances at 8 PM.

"A Night of Artistic Inspiration" is a celebration of Rebel Theater's first anniversary as a tax-exempt not-for-profit theater based in New York City. The Reception is followed by Arts Night awards ceremony with RTC co-founder and artistic director Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj presenting the first annual Revolutionary Award for Sustained Excellence to legendary theater producer Woodie King, Jr., culminating with an array of performances. 
 
Arts Night awards ceremony scheduled guests speakers include:  Dee, Baraka, director, writer and educator Shauneille Perry, TV and film actor Jerome Preston Bates, poet and playwright Sybill Roberts Williams, and TV, film and Broadway actors: Chadwick Boseman, Ebony Jo-Ann, Trish McCall, actress/playwright and Hip-Hop Theatre's Artistic Director Kamilah Forbes, and regional director and educator Tom Bullard. 
 
Arts Night will feature scheduled performing artists: Eric Anthony (Hairspray, Lion King, Mary Poppins), Britton Jones (History of the Word, Damn Yankees), Arthur Toombs (African Drummer, Union Square), Raun Ruffin (Civil War, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat), Margot Ebling (The Seagull and Intimate Apparel), Sandra Mills Scott ("All My Children," Intimate Apparel), Angela Kariotis (History of the Word, Reminiscence of the Ghetto), Jessica Fields (Magpie, Welcome to my Soul), Sherry Boone (Jelly's Last Jam, Marie Christine), Hisham Tawfig (Intimate Apparel), Myla Churchill (A Band of Angels, Union Square), Shannon Michael Wamser (Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Laramie Project), and Joey Rizzolo (Union Square, New York Neo-Futurists).
 
"Rebel Theater is the dream of four diverse, multicultural and multiethnic artists, founded June, 2005 Rebel Theater Company Inc. (RTC), to discover those unheard artistic voices in the American theater. RTC is the professional, resident, theater company of The Heritage School operating within the Julia De Burgos Latino Performing Arts Center in the heart of Spanish Harlem on 106th street. RTC offers two main stage productions, Rebel Lab workshops of developmental work, the Che Guevara Reading Series for new authors, the Heritage after-school theater education classes, a monthly academic-year-long Movie Night, and Heritage's year-ending student-mounted production showcasing the after-school theater arts development and education," according to press notes.
 
Woodie King, Jr. is a founder and Producing Director of New Federal Theatre in New York City. He co-produced For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, What the Wine sellers Buy, Reggae and The Taking of Miss Janie (Drama Critic Circle Award). He was nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award for Appear and Shoe Cause in 1985. He won a NAACP Image Award for directing Checkmates (Inner City Cultural Center, Los Angeles, 1987/88 season) and later directed it again on Broadway in 1988; Charles Dutton in Splendid Mummer (American Place Theatre) in 1987; Robert Johnson Trick The Devil for which he won Audelco Awards as Best Director and Best Play of the Year in 1993; and A Raisin in the Sun starring Esther Rolle and Kenny Leon (The ALLIANCE THEATRE, Atlanta, 1994). He received an Obie Award for Sustained Achievement in 1996/97 season.
 
For additional information call 212.726.1389, x2, visit the Rebel Theater website at www.rebeltheater.org  or by email at press@rebeltheater.org  Tickets are &25 for both the reception and Arts Night, or $20 for the reception and $10 for Arts Night.