Tony, Emmy, Grammy, and Oscar winner Viola Davis is part of Brooklyn Children’s Theatre's evening of music and celebration, April 25 at Brooklyn's 26 Bridge, to support musical theatre scholarships for hundreds of Brooklyn children.
Tony nominee Jeremy Shamos (Clybourne Park, Better Call Saul) and Nina Hellman (Wet Hot American Summer) host the annual gala, which celebrates the launch of BCT's Viola Davis Summer Program. The program's workshops will provide musical theatre instruction to youth with limited resources for summer enrichment.
Aisha Jackson (Once Upon a One More Time) and Manu Narayan (Company) will perform at the benefit, which begins at 7 PM.
“It’s important for kids to do theatre because it helps them to express themselves in a way they cannot, or feel they can’t, in their regular life,” Davis previously told BCT students. “It’s the one place where you can get all kinds of different people to come together into one community. Theatre has been the joy of my life. It really has.”
Davis is a newly crowned EGOT, having won Emmy (How to Get Away with Murder), Grammy (audiobook memoir, Finding Me), Oscar (Fences), and Tony (Fences and King Hedley II) awards. JuVee Productions, founded by Davis and her husband Julius Tennon, creates culturally relevant narratives such as The Woman King and Hungry for Answers.
Major sponsors of the gala include Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez (Frozen, Coco, Wanda Vision, Up Here), Morgan Stanley Global Sports & Entertainment, and Grantmakers For Girls of Color. Limited sponsorship packages and tickets are available here.
BCT’s mission is to dismantle barriers to the arts by prioritizing scholarships and providing holistic support to families such as social workers and meals. In 20 years, the non-profit has brought performing arts instruction to more than 10,000 Brooklyn children.
For more information visit BrooklynChildrensTheatre.org.
