Jennifer Holliday, J'Nai Bridges & Rema Webb to Perform at AMPLIFY 2024 Gala

Broadway legend and Tony and Grammy Award winner Jennifer Holliday, and two-time Grammy Award winner J’Nai Bridges, will perform at Houses on the Moon's AMPLIFY 2024 Gala Celebration. The evening will also feature songs from the Tony Award-winning musical Hell’s Kitchen, performed by original Broadway cast member Rema Webb.

AMPLIFY 2024 will honor Reggie Van Lee and this year’s Mauricio Leyton Award recipients, Modesto “Flako” Jimenez and Sarita Covington. The event will take place on Monday, October 7, 2024, at 6:30 PM at Green Room 42.

Jennifer Holliday catapulted to Broadway fame with the lead role as the iconic Effie “Melody” White in the 1981 smash hit Dreamgirls, winning a Grammy Award® for the performance of the show-stopping ballad “And I Am Telling You, I’m Not Going” and a Tony Award® for Best Actress in a Musical for the role. Her second album, Say You Love Me, won her a second Grammy for her rendition of Duke Ellington’s classic, “Come Sunday.” 

In 2016, Ms. Holliday returned to the stage starring alongside Cynthia Erivo in the Broadway revival of The Color Purple as sultry singer Shug Avery. Additional theater credits include Sing Mahalia Sing: The Mahalia Jackson Story, Downhearted Blues: The Bessie Smith Story, Harlem Suite (as “Aretha Franklin”), Chicago (as “Mama Morton”), Grease (as “Teen Angel”) and Black Nativity (as the “Angel of God”). She is a long-standing, dedicated supporter of the LGBTQ+ community and an advocate for mental health and suicide prevention.

Two time Grammy® Award-winning American mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges, known for her “plush-voiced mezzo-soprano” (The New York Times), and “calmly commanding stage presence” (The New Yorker) has been “marked out at and early stage as a singer headed for top flight” (Financial Times), gracing the world’s top opera and concert stages including the Metropolitan Opera, Hollywood Bowl, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Dutch National Opera, and more. A rising star, Bridges emerged as a key figure in advocating for inclusion and racial justice in classical music during the pandemic. Recognized as one of the Kennedy Center’s NEXT50 cultural leaders, she has received numerous prestigious awards, including the 2018 Sphinx Medal of Excellence and the 2016 Richard Tucker Career Grant.

Rema Webb most recently appeared in the Tony-Award winning musical Hell’s Kitchen. Additional Broadway Credits: Fat Ham, The Music Man, Escape to Margaritaville, The Color Purple, Violet, The Lion King, The Book of Mormon, & Ragtime. Off-Broadway/Regional: Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, Speak on It: The Fannie Lou Hamer Story, Unmasked, The Cradle Will Rock, The Colored Museum, A New Brain, Being Alive. Film/TV: Sudden Death, First Born, Beloved, “Murphy Brown” reboot, “Central Park,” “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” She is the Founder/Executive of On Broadway Performing Arts Training Program, which provides acting, singing, and dance classes for youth aged 7-17.

The Mauricio Leyton Award honors the memory of the late Chilean actor and Houses on the Moon artist Mauricio Leyton by annually recognizing an organization or artist that champions the unheard voice through community service. The award includes a cash prize to support their work within communities in need, funded by a percentage of the proceeds from Houses on the Moon’s annual AMPLIFY fundraiser and private donors.

"We are beyond thrilled to have Jennifer Holliday and J’Nai Bridges, two award-winning artists, perform at our AMPLIFY 2024 Gala Celebration. Honoring the extraordinary Reggie Van Lee, and celebrating the important work of gifted artists Modesto “Flako” Jimenez and Sarita Covington aligns perfectly with our mission of amplifying unheard voices. This special event promises to be a night of powerful performances and inspiring stories, and we couldn’t be more excited to share it with our community."—Emily Joy Wiener, Co-Founder & Artistic Director of Houses on the Moon
 

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