MEMPHIS Cast to Perform at Atlanta Hawks' Half-Time Show This Sunday

Atlanta Hawks fans attending the game on February 28, 2016 at 3:30pm will get a special treat at half-time when the award-winning cast of last fall's hit musical MEMPHIS takes the court to perform the show's finale, "Steal Your Rock 'n' Roll." Expect high octane vocals, dancing and soul!

MEMPHIS ran at the Aurora Theatre in Lawrenceville in July/August of 2015 and downtown at The Rialto Center for the Performing Arts in September of 2015. MEMPHIS will rock again, live, at Philips Arena thanks to the National Black Arts Festival and its partnership with the Atlanta Hawks as curator of the True Comes in All Colors Black History Campaign!

The color of love? Red hot. MEMPHIS has book & lyrics based by Joe DiPietro, music & lyrics by David Bryan and is based on a concept by George W. George. Directed by Tom Key, MEMPHIS features musical direction by Ann-Carol Pence and choreography by Waverly Lucas.

Winner of the Tony Award for Best Musical and inspired by the underground clubs of the 1950s, MEMPHIS follows the forbidden love of a white DJ who falls for everything he shouldn't: R&B music and a magnetic black singer chasing stardom. Our lovers embark with courage on a dangerous affair but are challenged by family, personal ambition and a non-accepting world. This roof-raising musical, about a revolution that erupts when a vision meets a voice, features a mix of electrifying music, high-octane dancing and soulful, soaring emotion.

This dynamic duo of Atlanta's top theaters will partner once again to kick off the 2016 theatre season this summer with the Tony Award and Grammy Award-winning IN THE HEIGHTS by Lin Manuel Miranda. Before he created the current Broadway sensation HAMILTON, Miranda showed us three days in the life of Washington Heights, a tightknit community with a distinctly Latin flare at the tippy-top of the biggest city in the world. This co-production brings together the resources and artistry of two celebrated institutions to create something bigger and better than one.

NBAF has partnered with the Atlanta Hawks as curator to shape the program and select the participants for its newly launched True Comes In All Colors: Celebrating Black History campaign. Through this unique partnership both organizations realize their mission and goals of recognizing and celebrating the extraordinary artistic richness and the profound transformational impact artists working in all disciplines have had in Atlanta, America and across the world. True Comes in All Colors is part of the Atlanta Basketball Club's expanding focus on speaking directly to multicultural audiences that are represented throughout the metro area. "With this campaign, the Atlanta Hawks continues to demonstrate its commitment not just to diversity and inclusion but to supporting arts and culture and meaningfully engaging its local communities. NBAF shares their commitment...something we have done for over twenty-eight years," noted Grace C Stanislaus, NBAF's Executive Director.

The National Black Arts Festival (NBAF) is a nonprofit organization with a twenty-seven year legacy of providing stellar artistic and educational programs in music, dance, film, visual arts, theater and the literary arts. Celebrated within and outside of Atlanta, NBAF is recognized as the oldest multidisciplinary arts organization in the United States focused exclusively on the arts and on artists of African descent. Through its annual festival, world class performances, commissioned works, visual arts programs and its arts education and public programs NBAF offers local, national and international audiences experiences that are extraordinary and enriching.

Under the artistic leadership of Co-Founders and Artistic Directors Anthony Rodriguez and Ann-Carol Pence, now in its 20th Season, Aurora Theatre produces professional live entertainment to suit everyone's taste. Aurora Theatre is home to over 600 events with more than 70,000 visitors each year. Two series of theatrical productions, the Peach State Federal Credit Union Signature Series and the GGC Harvel Lab Series, are comprised of the biggest Broadway plays and musicals alongside exciting contemporary theatre. Additionally, Aurora produces concerts, stand-up comedy, children's programs, metro Atlanta's top haunted attraction Lawrenceville Ghost Tours, as well as Atlanta's only professional Spanish language theatre, Teatro Aurora. Aurora Theatre is a world class theatrical facility with two performance venues. Nestled on the square in historic downtown Lawrenceville, Aurora has FREE attached covered parking and is surrounded by restaurants and shops. Aurora Theatre has garnered numerous accolades highlighted by recent achievements that include winner of five 2015 Suzi Bass Awards, Creative Loafing's "2010 Best Theatre Company," Georgia Trend Magazine's "2011 Best Places to Work in Georgia," Atlanta Business Chronicle's "2012 Best Places to Work", Atlanta Magazine's "Best of Atlanta 2013",Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce's 2014 President and CEO Award for Excellence in Arts, and Gwinnett Chamber's 2015 IMPACT Regional Business Award for Hospitality .

Atlanta's second-oldest continually-operating professional theatre company was founded in 1976 and has been led by Artistic Director Tom Key since fall 1995. Key led the company through the creation of its award-winning downtown home, the Balzer Theater at Herren's, the first U.S. theater to achieve LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The theater is on the historical site of Herren's, the first Atlanta restaurant to voluntarily desegregate (in 1963). Theatrical Outfit tells consistently high-quality, soul-stirring stories, often from great classics and contemporary literature that feature many of the best writers of the American South: Carlyle Brown, Truman Capote, Evan Davis, Horton Foote, Harper Lee, Cormac McCarthy, Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, Sherry Shepard-Massat, Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder, Hank Williams and Tennessee Williams. Theatrical Outfit is in the midst of transformation. After retiring its mortgage debt, the organization turned its attention to creating a new, multi year strategic plan, which was finalized in mid-2014. The new plan is a growth model and the first action was to hire a managing director, Lee Foster, who has just completed her first second year with the organization. Theatrical Outfit is the home of the Balzer Theater at 84 Luckie St., NW, Atlanta, GA 30303.

The National Black Arts Festival (NBAF) is a nonprofit organization with a twenty-eight year legacy of providing stellar artistic and educational programs in music, dance, film, visual arts, theater and the literary arts. Celebrated within and outside of Atlanta, NBAF is recognized as the oldest multidisciplinary arts organization in the United States focused exclusively on the arts and on artists of African descent. Through its annual festival, world class performances, commissioned works, visual arts programs and its arts education and public programs NBAF offers local, national and international audiences experiences that are extraordinary and enriching.

The Atlanta Hawks are a professional basketball team based in Atlanta, Georgia. The Hawks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member team of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division. The Hawks play their home games at Philips Arena.

NBAF has partnered with the Atlanta Hawks as curator to shape the program and select the participants for its newly launched True Comes In All Colors: Celebrating Black History campaign. Through this unique partnership both organizations realize their mission and goals of recognizing and celebrating the extraordinary artistic richness and the profound transformational impact artists working in all disciplines have had in Atlanta, America and across the world. True Comes in All Colors is part of the Atlanta Basketball Club's expanding focus on speaking directly to multicultural audiences that are represented throughout the metro area. "With this campaign, the Atlanta Hawks continues to demonstrate its commitment not just to diversity and inclusion but to supporting arts and culture and meaningfully engaging its local communities. NBAF shares their commitment...something we have done for over twenty-eight years," noted Grace C Stanislaus, NBAF's Executive Director.

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