Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts will present On Broadway with Melba Moore at Brooklyn College on Sunday, February 11 at 2pm.
The show will highlight Ms. Moore's impressive legacy in Broadway, television, film, and music. For more than 30 years, Ms. Moore's powerful four-octave voice has found favor with audiences who respond to her repertoire of popular songs and jazz standards.
Born in New York City to a mother who was a singer and a father who played saxophone and ran the popular jazz club Mitten's Playhouse in Harlem, Ms. Moore knew from an early age that music would be her life. Raised by her mother and step-father, keyboardist Clement Moorman, she studied piano and voice at the High School for Performing Arts and received a bachelor's degree in Music Education from Montclair State College.
Ms. Moore began her career as a backup vocalist for such artists as Aretha Franklin and
Dionne Warwick, but her big break came when she won the role of Dionne in the Broadway production of
Hair. During the run of the production, she eventually replaced Dianne Keaton in the role of Sheila, becoming the first black actress to replace a white actress in a leading role on Broadway. A Tony Award-winner for the title role in the musical
Purlie, Ms. Moore was most recently seen on Broadway as Fantine in
Les Miserables.
Other credits include "The
Melba Moore /
Clifton Davis Show," the mini-series "Ellis Island," R&B and POP hits "This Is It," "You Stepped Into My Life," and her Grammy Award-nominated signature song, "Lean On Me."
Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts was founded in 1954. The Centers mission is to present outstanding performing arts and arts education programs, reflective of Brooklyn's diverse communities, at affordable prices.
On Broadway with Melba Moore is at the Walt Whitman Theatre on the campus of Brooklyn College (one block from the junction of Flatbush & Nostrand Avenues)
Sunday, February 11, 2007 at 2pm; Tickets $30, $25, $15. Order tickets online at www.BrooklynCenterOnline.org, or by phone (718) 951-4500, Tuesday – Saturday, 1PM – 6PM. Groups of 15 or more: (718) 951-4600, ext. 22
