Kyle Jean-Baptiste, the promising young actor who died August 29, 2015, in a freak accident just weeks after becoming the youngest actor and first African-American actor to play Jean Valjean in Les Misérables on Broadway, is being remembered October 23 in a benefit concert in Cleveland, Ohio.
Serving as understudy to Ramin Karimloo in the Broadway revival of Les Misérables, Jean-Baptiste went on in the leading role for the first time on July 23, 2015. His life ended just over a month later when he fell from a fire escape at a friend’s apartment in Brooklyn, New York.
Read: History-Making Jean Valjean Kyle Jean-Baptiste Dies at 21
Titled Out There: BW Alumni Return to Cleveland, the 7 PM concert is being organized by his fellow musical theatre alumni of Baldwin Wallace University to benefit the Kyle Jean-Baptiste Foundation. They are scheduled to perform songs from Broadway shows.
According to the site’s web page, the foundation, “supports and provides opportunities of enrichment and learning to empower and engage youth, families and community through the Arts, with a focus on the Performing Arts.”
In addition to the foundation, scholarships in his name exist at P.S. 276 in New York, Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School in Manhttan, and at Baldwin Wallace University, in Berea, Ohio.
The concert will be held at the Cleveland nightclub Nighttown. Tickets cost $15.
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