STAGE TUBE: MOTOWN Creator Takes Spotlight in PBS' AN EVENING WITH BERRY GORDY

An Evening With Berry Gordy provides a rare inside look into the life and times of boxer, songwriter, producer, movie director, entrepreneur and Motown founder Berry Gordy. This one-on-one interview was taped in front of a live audience at the Art Institute of Chicago with PBS-TV journalist, Gwen Ifill, serving as the host interviewer. Click below to watch the full special!

This program was videotaped as part of the annual celebrity interview and fundraiser for The HistoryMakers, a 501(c)(3) Illinois, not-for-profit corporation. An Evening with Berry Gordy was produced by Julieanna Richardson, with co-producers Suzanne de Passe and Charles Randolph-Wright. The show's music producer is Ray Chew.

Berry Gord formed his own company - Motown Records - after a chance meeting with Smokey Robinson. Headquartered in a house on Detroit's West Grand Boulevard, in 1960, Motown released Smokey Robinson's Shop Around which sold more than a million copies and helped to launch the most influential artists of the twentieth century: Diana Ross and the Supremes, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Marvin Gaye, Tammi Terrell, Mary Wells and many others.?

MOTOWN THE MUSICAL, featuring music and lyrics from the legendary Motown catalogue and a book by Berry Gordy began preview performances on Broadway on March 11 at The Lunt-Fontanne Theatre (205 West 46th Street), and officially opened on April 14.

Directed by Charles Randolph-Wright, Motown The Musical is the real story of the one-of-a-kind sound that hit the airwaves in 1959 and changed our culture forever. This exhilarating show charts Motown Founder Berry Gordy's incredible journey from featherweight boxer to the heavyweight music mogul who launched the careers of Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye and many more.