Ron Gillyard

Six-time Grammy Award winner Bebe Winans will be performing his first solo concert in over a decade at the legendary Apollo Theatre on Saturday, December 2, 2023. Winans will be backed up by the incomparable Donald Lawrence & Company. A live album will be recorded during the concert, produced by Donald Lawrence and Ron Gillyard. 

Read about the success of Black Man Films' 'Speak Up Brotha!' as it wins the Grand Jury Prize at Dances with Films:LA. Discover where the film will be screened next at the Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival and the BronzeLens Film Festival of Atlanta in August.

Poitier made history as the first African American actor to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for Lilies of the Field in 1963. Poitier was seen on Broadway in A Raisin in the Sun, Anna Lucasta, and Lysistrata. His life is set to be the subject of an upcoming play, titled Sidney, directed by Tony-winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson.

Today's top stories include two new casting changes in Wicked! Brittney Johnson and Jordan Barrow will take over the roles of Glinda and Boq, respectfully, making them the first Black actors to take over the principal roles.

The legendary life of Academy Award-winning actor, filmmaker, activist and human-rights trailblazer Sidney Poitier set to be a new Broadway play produced by Ron Gillyard (Born for This, Mr. Soul); Poitier's daughter, filmmaker Anika Poitier; and Barry Krost. 

'Mr. SOUL!” was also shortlisted at the 93rd Academy Awards in the category of Best Original Song, for “Show Me Your Soul” by Grammy Award-winning composer Robert Glasper and Grammy Award-winning singer Lalah Hathaway. 

The Center Theatre Group Board of Directors has elected Amy R. Forbes as its President, beginning July 1, 2021.

Center Theatre Group has added eight new members to its Board of Directors over the course of this season, as the organization continues building strong support from across the community throughout the prolonged closures of its theatres as a result of the pandemic, announced Board President Kiki Ramos Gindler. Growing its Board to 50 members, its newest dedicated supporters are Michelle A. Avan, Wendy Chang, Noah Francis, Ron Gillyard, Max Gousse, Marsha Tauber Sallai, Richard Weitz and Hattie Winston.

The 2020 American Black Film Festival announced its winners during a virtual ceremony on Sunday, August 30 from Miami Beach, Fla. Boris Kodjoe and Nicole Ari Parker hosted the awards show, which featured Spike Lee, Lee Daniels, Laz Alonso, Bevy Smith, Logan Browning, Sinqua Walls and La La Anthony as presenters with BeBe Winans closing the ceremony with a performance of his original song “Black Lives Matter.”

Grammy award-winning, Gospel and R&B icon, BeBe Winans, returns in partnership with Hidden Beach Recordings for a deeply heartfelt single, “Black Lives Matter.”

Theatrical press rep extraordinaire Sam Rudy recently announced his retirement from the Broadway scene.  Rudy began his Broadway career as a press assistant for the 1979 play Strider. Since then, his Sam Rudy Media Relations has represented thirteen Broadway shows and many more off-Broadway productions, including Avenue Q and Hamilton.  Some of Rudy's Broadway friends got together to toast his retirement and BroadwayWorld is taking you inside the very special event below!

Anticipating a Broadway bow this season, Born For This: A New Musical took home five awards at the 28th annual NAACP Theatre Awards held last night, June 17, at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles.  

Once again, the NAACP Beverly Hills/Hollywood Branch's Theatre Viewing Committee has spoken, and the nominations are in for the 28th Annual NAACP Theatre Awards. This year's pedigreed list of nominees collectively represents a rich, extensive dossier of legacies and accolades for both stage and screen. These nominees include members of a legendary 'gospel royal family' as well as a Legend whose part of an elite group of artists in the EGOT winners circle. These, along with all their fellow nominees, will be honored for their excellence on the small and large stages during our annual awards dinner, slated to be held on Monday, June 17, 2019, 6:00 p.m.at the prestigious Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, California.

The Broadway-bound production of BeBe Winans' new autobiographical musical BORN FOR THIS, releases its first-ever music video of the title song, starring Donald Webber, Jr., who is set to depict Winans when BORN FOR THIS comes to Broadway (theatre and dates TBA).  Mr. Winans makes a cameo appearance in the music video, as well.

BeBe Winans just presented the Broadway-bound musical BORN FOR THIS as a one-night-only concert at Feinstein's/54 Below (254 W. 54 St). Sharing the stage with Winans was director Charles Randolph-Wright (Motown), legendary Grammy and American Music Award winning recording artist Stephanie Mills, and members of the cast from last summer's pre-Broadway tryout in Boston including Maddie Shea Baldwin (Bright Star), Liisi LaFontaine(Dreamgirls), Loren Lott (Once on this Island), Donald Webber Jr. (Hamilton), Kirsten Wyatt (Annie), and Nita Whitaker (Ragtime). The evening introduced the BORN FOR THIS story and some of the original songs from the Broadway aimed musical, which also played regional engagements in Atlanta, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles.

Legendary Grammy and American Music Award winning recording artist and beloved Broadway actress, Stephanie Mills will join BeBe Winans and the cast of the Broadway-bound musical BORN FOR THIS for a one-night-only concert previewing the music from his original musical BORN FOR THIS on Monday, November 5 at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. at Feinstein's/54 Below (254 W. 54 St).

The producers of the Broadway-bound musical BORN FOR THIS, today announced that Gospel and R&B music legend BEBE WINANS will host a one-night-only concert previewing the music from his original musical BORN FOR THIS on Monday, November 5 at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. at Feinstein's/54 Below (254 W. 54 St). For tickets please visit https://54below.com/events/born-for-this/

The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage in Santa Monica presents Born for This July 11 through August 6 (press opening on July 20).  Kicking off The Broad Stage's 2017-18 Theatre Season, this new musical features original music by six time GRAMMY Award-winning artist BeBe Winans, book by Charles Randolph-Wright and BeBe Winans, and is directed by Randolph-Wright (director of the Broadway and West End runaway hit Motown: The Musical).