More Information About Conversation with... Leslie Uggams

Website

http://www.pasadenaplayhouse.org/

Description

Join Pasadena Playhouse for an intimate and lively discussion with Emmy and Tony Award-winning actress/singer Leslie Uggams, moderated by Pasadena Playhouse Artistic Director Sheldon Epps. Ms. Uggams will be playing the lead role in Stormy Weather -- a musical inspired by the life and music of Lena Horne.

Festivities begin on the patio at 6:30 with live jazz and cobbler.

Leslie Uggams most recently thrilled Broadway audiences performing as Ethel Thayer opposite James Earl Jones in the revival of Ernest Thompson's On Golden Pond. That performance came on the heels of her stunning portrayal of the off-beat society heiress Muzzy Van Hossmere in the Tony-award winning musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. That's just the latest accomplishment for a woman who has been captivating stage, screen and television audience since her national television debut at age six on the TV series Beulah, portraying the niece of Ethel Waters.

Concurrent with her musical composition and theory studies at the Juilliard School, Leslie released her first of 10 albums she was to record for Columbia Records, including her first hit single, "Morgan."

Alternating major nightclub appearances with her stage work, Leslie appeared in the musical The Boyfriend in Berkley, California. Soon she won the Broadway lead in Hallelujah, Baby!, which had originally been written for Lena Horne, and earned the 1968 Tony Award for Best Actress In A Broadway Musical Comedy. Two years later, she had her own musical variety television series on CBS-TV The Leslie Uggams Show, and a new recording contract with Atlantic Records. In 1970, Leslie made her dramatic film debut in the MGM thriller Skyjacked.