Leslie Uggams Performs in Concert, Conducts Master Classes at Wright State This Week

Tony and Emmy Award-winning actress and singer Leslie Uggams will share her insights and talents with students of the Wright State University Musical Theatre Program today and tomorrow, January 22-23 in Dayton, Ohio. Uggams will become the first major visiting artist to conduct master classes and perform as a guest of the school's new Musical Theatre Initiative.

"Leslie Uggams represents so much of the history of popular entertainment in the last half of the 20th century and into the 21st," says Joe Deer, distinguished professor of musical theatre and director of the Musical Theatre Initiative at Wright State. "Exposing students and faculty to an artist like Ms. Uggams provides inspiration to complement the rigors and discipline of training. It's an infusion of energy for all of us."

The new Musical Theatre Initiative celebrates and explores the history, culture and craft of the musical theatre through guest artist residencies, concert performances and international conferences. It provides students and faculty with the unique opportunity to learn from and work beside world renowned artists, thinkers and teachers.

Today, January 22, Uggams will lead master classes with acting and musical theatre students from 10 a.m. to noon in the Herbst Theatre in the Creative Arts Center. The classes are open to the public. The master classes will be followed at 1 p.m. by a question-and-answer session led by Deer. Later in the day Uggams will work privately with a select group of musical theatre students who will perform with her the following night.

On Friday, January 23 at 8 p.m. Uggams and her protégés take the stage of the Victoria Theatre in downtown Dayton in a concert featuring classic and contemporary standards. They will be backed by Don Rebic on piano, Ray Kilday on bass, and John Ferraro on drums. The concert is presented by the Musical Theatre Initiative at Wright State and the Victoria Theatre Association. Additional support for Uggams' visit is provided by Wright State's Bolinga Black Cultural Center.

Tickets for the concert are $47 and $37 for the public; $17 for Wright State faculty and staff; and $7 for all students. Tickets may be ordered online at ticketcenterstage.com or by calling (937) 228-3630.

In conjunction with Uggams' visit to Wright State, ThinkTV, Dayton's public television station, will produce a 30-minute segment highlighting her performance and sessions with the students. Future broadcasts will be scheduled throughout the PBS network.

According to Deer, who worked with Uggams 25 years ago on the national tour of Anything Goes, Uggams is the ideal performer to serve as the Musical Theatre Initiative's first visiting artist. "She runs the gamut from silly, variety show entertainment to very serious drama," he says. "She will give our students a chance to really apply what they learn from her."

Leslie Uggams is a Tony and Emmy Award-winning actress and singer whose career has brought her from Harlem (Uptown) to Broadway (Downtown), the big screen (Skyjacked) to television (The Leslie Uggams Show). Perhaps best known for her stirring portrayal of Kizzy in the landmark TV mini-series Alex Haley's Roots (Critics Choice Award, Emmy and Golden Globe nominations), Ms. Uggams has performed to critical and popular acclaim ever since her first professional appearances at the age of nine at the Apollo Theater. Today Ms. Uggams serves on the Board of Directors of the Apollo.

Currently Ms. Uggams has been touring nationally, performing to sold-out audiences, with her autobiographical one-woman musical Uptown/Downtown (LA Drama Critics Circle Award, NAACP Theatre Award, IRNE Award, Broadway World People's Choice Award) which chronicles her extraordinary career in stories and song. Recently Ms. Uggams also starred in Mame at the Wick Theatre in Florida; as Mama Rose in Gypsy at Connecticut Repertory Theatre; in the Encores! presentation of Pipe Dream at New York City Center; and in the Broadway-bound world premiere of Stormy Weather: The Lena Horne Story (Ovation nomination) at the Pasadena Playhouse in California, breaking that theater's all-time house attendance record. She also starred in a recent industry reading of the Broadway-bound musical adaptation of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

On Broadway Ms. Uggams made her stunning musical theater debut starring in Hallelujah, Baby! earning both Tony and Theater World awards. Since then she has starred on Broadway in Blues in the Night, Her First Roman with Richard Kiley, Jerry's Girls, Anything Goes at the Lincoln Center Theatre (also the first national tour), King Headley II with Brian Stokes Mitchell (Tony Award nomination), Thoroughly Modern Millie, and most recently On Golden Pond opposite James Earl Jones. Off-Broadway Ms. Uggams has won Audelco Awards for several highly praised star turns including The Old Settler, Keb Mo's blues musical Thunder Knocking on the Door, and most recently First Breeze of Summer at the acclaimed Signature Theater. Regional roles include A Little Night Music at Michigan Opera Theatre, The Rink at the Cape Playhouse, Hello, Dolly! and Into the Woods at Houston's Theater Under the Stars, Master Class at TheaterFest in New Jersey, and Call Me Madam and Blue at Paper Mill Playhouse, NJ.

Ms. Uggams' still vibrant television career, which began at the age of six portraying Ethel Waters' niece on the TV series Beulah, spans decades. As a teenager she famously won a $12,500 college scholarship on Name That Tune, and as a regular on Sing Along with Mitch she was the first African American performer to be featured on a weekly national prime time television series. Other early guest appearances included Your Show of Shows, The Milton Berle Show, The Arthur Godfrey Show, and The Ed Sullivan Show. In 1970 she hosted her own prime time variety series, The Leslie Uggams Show. Later starring roles included her award-winning portrayal in Alex Haley's Roots, the miniseries Backstairs at the White House, the ABC-TV movie Sizzle, the HBO special Christmas at Radio City Music Hall, and her Emmy-winning duties as co-host of the NBC-TV series Fantasy. She continues to guest star on dramatic series with recent appearances on The Good Wife, Memphis Beat and NYC 22. She will appear on a three-episode arc of Nurse Jackie in the upcoming season.

For more information, visit Leslie Uggams online at www.leslieuggams.com.

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