RECAP: Amber Iman, Adrienne Warren, and Robb Nanus Talked About Broadway Advocacy Coalition on STARS IN THE HOUSE

Stars in the House continued Saturday night (8pm) with Broadway Advocacy Coalition Founders Adrienne Warren, Amber Iman joined by Executive Director Robb Nanus. This episode was in support of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Amber Iman began the origin story of the Broadway Advocacy Coalition. "Adrienne [Warren] and I were doing SHUFFLE ALONG in 2016 I remember seeing an article on BroadwayWorld that a bus full of actors were going down to Florida to sing for the PULSE night club massacre and I thought that was so brilliant and I was like 'Oh my god, I guess I've been so busy that I guess I've missed out on all the Broadway events for Black Lives Matter.' So I went to Google to look up all the events that I missed and I realized I missed nothing because there was nothing...at the time I just was angry and I went on Facebook and I wrote this post...' Where's Broadway for Black Lives Matter?' and then walked away from my computer...two hours later the post had gotten like 2,000 likes and all these people were in my inbox and were like 'if anyone's gonna do anything it's you...' Being in the theatre with Adrienne and Britton Smith...Aisha Jackson and Mykal Kilgore were like 'what are we gonna do?' So I was like 'Ok, let's just have a meeting.' and we met at the Brooks Atkinson and someone said 'Amber, what's your dream?' I said...' I want to sing but I want to do something. Let's have an event where it's dance, spoken word, and song and I want to hear from an NYPD officer...I'm angry and I don't know who to be angry at so maybe we can bring in some community activists and it can be more than performance, it can be education...' That event was spectacular...everybody was like 'What's next?" People were looking at us for an organization and we had no idea how to do that...That's how BAC was formed. We did not plan it, it was not in the cards this whole time. It just sort of happened."

Adrienne added, "A big part of making change is coalition building and there are so many people who want to do things and are doing things so we try to find out if anyone's building things we want to know about it and we want to find out how we can be of support...It's about connecting people and creating community and us working together for change."

Adrienne shared, "I'm angry that the world had to be on fire for us to have conversations like this. I'm mad but I know that my job is also to use that anger as an artist and to channel it into ways that I feel are productive and beneficial to not only myself but to everyone. I care about what happens after I'm not here anymore."

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Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos