Tony Award-nominated actor Stephen McKinley Henderson will discuss his life and work as part of an informal, Inside the Actors Studio-style dialogue at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 16, in Washington University’s Edison Theatre.
Stephen McKinley Henderson as Red Carter in The Signature Theatre Company’s 2006 production of August Wilson’s Seven Guitars. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
Titled “An Evening with Stephen McKinley Henderson,” the event is presented in conjunction with the symposium “Uncovering/Discovering The Other,” co-sponsored by The Black Rep and the College of Arts & Sciences.
Tickets to the talk are $20, or $10 for students. Edison Theatre is located in the Mallinckrodt Center, 6445 Forsyth. For more information, visit theblackrep.org or call (314) 534-3807.
A native of Kansas City, Henderson has performed extensively both on and off-Broadway. He is particularly known for his work with playwright August Wilson, whom he first met in 1991, while appearing as Bynum Walker in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.
In the years since, Henderson has appeared in eight of the 10 plays in Wilson’s Century Cycle. Most recently, he earned a Tony Award nomination for best featured actor in a play or performance for his portrayal of Jim Bono in the Broadway revival of Wilson’s Fences, a production that also featured Denzel Washington.
In addition to Henderson’s talk, the symposium will include a free screening of The Best is Yet to Come, a documentary about The Black Rep’s first 25 years, at 4 p.m. Thursday, also in Edison Theatre.
Now one of the nation’s largest and most respected African-American theatre companies, The Black Rep was founded in 1976 by Ron Himes, who was then earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration from University College, the adult, evening and continuing education division in Arts & Sciences.
To date, Himes has produced and directed more than 100 plays for The Black Rep. He also serves as the Henry E. Hampton, Jr., Artist-in-Residence in Arts & Sciences.
A free reception for attendees of both the screening and the dialogue will be held at 5 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 16, in the Women’s Building Formal Lounge.
The symposium will conclude with a free panel discussion on “The Collaborative Process” at 4 p.m. Friday, Sept. 17, in the Mallinckrodt Center’s A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre.
Panelists will be playwrights Andrew Moodie and Samm-Art Williams, along with actor Antonio Fargas (best-known for the role of Huggy Bear on the 1970s TV show Starsky and Hutch) and Ed Smith, artistic director of Jubilee Theatre in Fort Worth, Tex.
Additional support for “Uncovering/Discovering The Other” is provided by African and African-American Studies Program and the Performing Arts Department, both in Arts & Sciences; WUSLAM, the campus spoken-word poetry group; and WUCypher, the hip-hop dance squad.