LOS ANGELES – Geffen Playhouse raised $1 million for the theater’s training, neighborhood engagement and creative initiatives at its signature Backstage on the Geffen annual fundraiser held May 20, it was introduced at the moment. Emmy-winning cinematographer John Simmons offered the Distinction in Theater Award to Emmy-winning actor, director and choreographer Debbie Allen, and All American government producer Nkechi Okoro Carroll offered the Distinction in Service Award to WGA, DGA, Golden Globe, and Emmy-nominated author, director, and producer Greg Berlanti.
The night of unscripted, unannounced storytellers and performers was hosted for a 3rd consecutive 12 months by comic, actor, author and producer Tone Bell and featured private behind-the-scenes anecdotes from a lineup of shock celeb company together with Jay Leno, Mimi Rogers, Julia Sweeney and magician and The New York Timescrossword constructor David Kwong, who additionally led the viewers in fixing a bespoke crossword puzzle he created for Backstage on the Geffen. Welcoming the group was Geffen Playhouse Executive Director Gil Cates, Jr., who thanked the viewers for his or her ongoing assist of the humanities and serving to to maintain storytelling alive on the Geffen phases for years to return.
The night opened with a rousing efficiency by The String Queens, with a specifically curated playlist that paid tribute to Debbie Allen and Greg Berlanti and their prolific careers. Praised for its genuine, soulful and orchestral sound, The String Queens is a dynamic trio that creates stimulating musical experiences that encourage numerous audiences to like, hope, really feel and picture. Next up for the viewers was a raucous, irreverent set from the raucous and irreverent Broadway Barbara (aka Barbara Dixon). According to Dixon, she isn’t any mere entertainer; she is the dwelling, respiratory, dancing, screaming embodiment of leisure itself. The night got here to a detailed with an authentic tune written for Backstage on the Geffen by Grammy and Emmy winner Adam Kantor and composer Matt Gould, who additionally carried out the piece with Kantor on vocals and Gould accompanying on piano.
Backstage on the Geffen acknowledges the accomplishments of leaders within the creative neighborhood, helps the theater’s mission to provide authentic, high quality work and raises funds for its training and neighborhood engagement packages, which deliver stay theater to greater than 15,000 youth, seniors and veterans in communities throughout Los Angeles.
Debbie Allen – Distinction in Theater Award
Debbie Allen, a B.F.A. graduate of Howard University in Theater and Classical Greek Studies, holds 5 honorary Doctorate levels, has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was named a Kennedy Center honoree, and is an award-winning director/choreographer who has choreographed the Academy Awards a report ten occasions. She has directed and choreographed for legendary artists comparable to Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, Gwen Verdon, Lena Horne, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dolly Parton, Savion Glover, and most not too long ago Tyler Perry’s A Jazzman’s Blues. Ms. Allen obtained the Golden Globe for her function as Lydia Grant within the Eighties hit sequence Fame, the Drama Desk Award for her portrayal of Anita in West Side Story, and is a four-time Emmy Award winner in Choreography for Fame (twice), The Motown twenty fifth, and Christmas on the Square. She has additionally obtained the Emmy Award for Outstanding Movie Made for Television as Executive Producer of Christmas on the Square, and the Governors Award on the 73rd Emmys. Awarded ten Image Awards as director, actress, choreographer and producer for Fame, A Different World, Motown twenty fifth, The Academy Awards, The Debbie Allen Special, and Amistad, she has additionally directed the most effective that TV provides, together with Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, Jane the Virgin, Empire, Insecure, Ms. Pat, and Samuel L. Jackson’s The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey. She presently serves as Executive Producing Director of Grey’s Anatomy, the place she recurs as Dr. Catherine Fox. She is the daughter of poet Vivian Ayers and Dr. Andrew Allen, spouse to NBA All-Star Norman Nixon, sister to Phylicia Rashad, Tex Allen, and Hugh Allen, mom of Vivian and Thump, and grandmother of Shiloh and Aviah.
Greg Berlanti – Distinction in Service Award
WGA, DGA, Golden Globe, and Emmy nominated author, director, and producer, Greg Berlanti, is the power behind a few of the most artistic and acclaimed works in movie and tv. He started his profession in tv as a workers author on the hit present Dawson’s Creek and have become an government producer and showrunner of the sequence after just one 12 months on workers. Since then, Berlanti has served as creator, author, and producer behind a number of of essentially the most ingenious and largest hits on tv, together with Everwood, Brothers & Sisters, Political Animals, Arrow, Blindspot, The Flash, Supergirl, You, Riverdale, Titans, Doom Patrol, All American, and The Flight Attendant. For the previous few years, Berlanti Productions has had as many as 15 exhibits on the air at one time—a report breaking variety of exhibits to air at one time for a TV producer and creator. Berlanti made his movie directorial debut in 2000 with The Broken Hearts Club. He additionally directed the critically acclaimed movie, Love, Simon, and he’s presently directing Project Artemis, starring Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson for Apple Original Films. Berlanti has produced quite a few function movies together with the not too long ago launched My Policeman for Amazon, starring Harry Styles and Emma Corrin; Jennifer Kent’s Alice & Freda Forever; HBO Max’s Moonshot; Rachel Lee Goldenberg’s Unpregnant; Shawn Levy’s Free Guy, and the upcoming adaptation of Red, White and Royal Blue directed by Matthew López. The movie division of his firm, Berlanti/Schechter Films, has an unique first-look function movie cope with Netflix. Berlanti was included in Time journal’s 100 Most Influential People of 2020. He presently resides in Los Angeles together with his husband and two kids.
UCLA Health served as Title Sponsor for Backstage on the Geffen, marking its third consecutive sponsorship of the theater’s annual fundraiser.
City National Bank and The Adi and Jerry Greenberg Foundation served as Presenting Sponsors, persevering with longstanding relationships with Geffen Playhouse.
The Event Committee included Merle Dandridge, Adi Greenberg, Loretta Everett Kaufman, Linda Bernstein Rubin and Marc Weinstock.
The Honorary Host Committee included Calista Flockhart and Harrison Ford, Cindy and Alan Horn, Quincy Jones, Gloria Calderón Kellett and David Kellett, Sherry Lansing, Lyn and Norman Lear, Fay and Frank Mancuso*, Rita Moreno, Bruce* & Madeline Ramer, Jazmyn Simon and Dulé Hill, and Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks. *Founding Trustees.
The pre-show reception and dinner featured design parts by Derrick Lemont Johnson – Interior and Event Design, florals by Vida en Bloom, and spirits sponsored by House of Suntory.
A silent public sale was held and included distinctive one-of-a-kind objects and experiences, in addition to lodge packages offered by Backstage on the Geffen supporters together with the Four Seasons Resort Maui, Fairmont Empress in Victoria BC, and Petrossian.
ABOUT GEFFEN PLAYHOUSE
Geffen Playhouse has been a hub of the Los Angeles theater scene since opening its doorways in 1995. Noted for its intimacy and celebrated for its world-renowned mixture of basic and up to date performs, provocative new works and second productions, the not-for-profit group continues to current a physique of labor that has garnered nationwide recognition. Named in honor of leisure mogul and philanthropist David Geffen, who made the preliminary donation to the theater, the corporate was based by Gilbert Cates and is presently helmed by Executive Director Gil Cates, Jr. and Board Chair Adi Greenberg. Proudly related to UCLA, the Geffen welcomes an viewers of greater than 130,000 annually, and maintains in depth training and neighborhood engagement packages, designed to contain underserved younger individuals and the neighborhood at giant within the arts. www.geffenplayhouse.org
ABOUT CITY NATIONAL BANK
With $95.9 billion in property, City National Bank offers banking, funding and belief companies by way of 69 branches, together with 22 full-service regional facilities, in Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area, Nevada, New York City, Nashville, Atlanta, Washington, D.C. and Miami*. In addition, the corporate and its funding associates handle or administer $88.2 billion in consumer funding property. City National is a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), one of many world’s main diversified monetary companies corporations. RBC serves greater than 17 million private, enterprise, public sector and institutional shoppers by way of places of work in Canada, the United States and 27 different nations. For extra details about City National, go to the corporate’s web site at cnb.com. *City National Bank does enterprise in Miami and the state of Florida as CN Bank.
ABOUT UCLA HEALTH
UCLA Health is the place discovery results in world-class care. Among the world’s most complete tutorial well being programs, UCLA Health’s mission is to supply state-of-the-art affected person care, assist pioneering analysis and prepare prime medical professionals. It consists of 4 hospitals on two campuses — Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital, and the UCLA Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital, within the Westwood space of Los Angeles, and UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center – and greater than 250 neighborhood clinics throughout Southern California. UCLA Health hospitals are ranked within the nation’s prime 5 by U.S. News & World Report, and for 33 consecutive years have appeared on the nationwide honor roll of solely 20 hospitals offering the highest-quality care. UCLA Health additionally consists of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Visit uclahealth.org
ABOUT ADI AND JERRY GREENBERG
Adi Greenberg joined the Geffen Playhouse Board of Directors in 2009 and presently serves as its Chair. She turned a theater actress on the age of six, showing in quite a few productions regionally and in New York. After finishing her B.A. in theater at Barnard College, Columbia University, she moved to Los Angeles the place she pursued a profitable profession in tv and movie. In addition to the Board of the Geffen Playhouse, Ms. Greenberg serves on the Board of No Limits for Deaf Children and Families, a nonprofit that teaches underserved deaf kids and their households the abilities to reach college and in life by way of its after-school academic facilities and distinguished theater arts program, selling advocacy and consciousness worldwide. A mom of three, Ms. Greenberg presently resides in Santa Monica, CA along with her husband and youngsters.
Victoria & Ronald Simms Courtyard at Geffen Playhouse — Photo by Hunter Kerhart