Ebony Jo-Ann
Ebony Jo-Ann, “Blackgold” acclaimed Blues vocalist, award winning Broadway/Film actress and social activist will perform selections from her debut chart climbing CD – Please Save Your Love for Me – on Sunday, January 17th at 10:00 P.M. at New York Midtown Hilton Hotel, 1335 Ave of the Americas, Regent Ballroom, 2nd floor in New York as part of APAP. Please arrive by 9:30 P.M. as space is limited.
Ebony Jo-Ann’s “Please Save Your Love For Me” (self-released) was recently named on Asbury Park Press‘ list of The Best Blues and Roots-Rock Albums of 2015.
Richard Skelly writes,
“New York City-based singer Ebony Jo-Ann comes to us from the world of professional theater. Her debut, five covers and five original songs, is magnificently produced with veteran New York studio and club musicians. She offers stellar takes on three classic blues covers, Syl Johnson’s “Is It Because I’m Black?” Little Walter’s “Sittin’ On Top of the World,” and Percy Mayfield’s prayer for peace, “Please Send Me Someone to Love.”
Ebony Jo-Ann in the recording studio. Photo by Lia Chang
Ebony Jo-Ann has been seen on Broadway in Gem of the Ocean, Drowning Crow, the revival of The Sunshine Boys with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall, Sheila’s Day (co-author), Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (original production and 2003 revival) and Mule Bone; and off-Broadway in Crowns at Second Stage Theatre, Inacent Black at the Mitzi Newhouse/Lincoln Center and Do Lord Remember Me at the American Place Theatre and Hunter College. Her regional credits include the title role of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom at Syracuse Stage and at the Kennedy Center in the August Wilson’s 20th Century; The Sunshine Boys with Jack Klugman at the George Street Playhouse; as Cookie in the Negro Ensemble Company’s production of Samm-Art William’s The Waiting Room; as Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune in the tour of If This Hat Could Talk; in Sanctified at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and as Essie Belle Johnson in Tambourines To Glory (True Colors Theatre Company, Helen Hayes Award nominee); Waiting To Be Invited at ACT Theatre/Seattle and the Denver Theatre Center; The Trial of One Short-Sighted Black Woman vs Mammy Louise and Safreeta Mae at the New Federal Theatre and the National Black Theatre Festival in North Carolina; Heaven and the Homeboy at Montclair State College; From the Mississippi Delta at Boston University, the Cincinnati Playhouse and the Alliance Theater; Lost in the Stars at the Long Wharf Theatre; Spunk at Center Stage; Bubblin’ Brown Sugar at Walnut Street Theatre; and Fame:The Musical at the Coconut Grove Theatre and the Walnut Street Theatre. She has been in the national and international tours of The Wiz, Satchmo, Apollo: It Was Just Like Magic and Sheila’s Day in Grahamstown, South Africa. Television credits include “The Jury,” “Law & Order SVU,” “100 Centre Street,” “The PBS American Authors Series,” “New York Undercover,” “Law & Order,” “Outreach” (pilot), “New York News” and “One Life to Live”. Film credits include Adam Sandler’s Grownups and Grownups 2 as Mama Ronzoni, Noise with Tim Robbins, Kate & Leopold as Nurse Ester, Pootie Tang as Pootie’s Mother, Eddie, The Day the Ponies Come Back, Tears of a Clown, The Stand-In, Fly By Night, Dark Waters, Chain of Desires, The Orphan King, When in Rome, The Other Brother, The Boxer, Driving Fish, The Stand-in and Marci X, Our Last Time (African Burial Ground Museum) and Frederick Douglass: An American Life as Harriet Tubman. Ms. Jo-Ann is the recipient the Reel Sisters Hattie McDaniel Award, six Vivian Robinson AUDELCO Awards, a 2014 National Action Network’s WOMAN OF EXCELLENCE award for her continuing and outstanding dedication through her artistic talents as well as her contributions to civil and human rights, and a 1993 Jeff Award for supporting actress in the touring production of The Wiz.
In 2013, Ms. Jo Ann reprised her role as Ma Rainey for The Greene Space’s AMERICAN CENTURY CYCLE Recording of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Click here to listen to The recording of 1920: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson.
Ebony Jo-Ann as Addapearle, Darlesia Cearcy as Dorothy and the Munchkins in The Wiz is 40 at Rumsey Playfield, Summerstage in New York on August 12, 2015. Photo by Lia Chang
This summer, Miss Jo-Ann appeared in PROJECT1VOICE’s 50th anniversary staged-reading of the NEC seminal work, Happy Ending by Douglas Turner Ward, directed by Timothy Douglas, with Arthur French, Lizan Mitchell and Leslie Odom, Jr. at the Harlem Hospital Mural Pavilion; at Summerstage in Central Park and Marcus Garvey Park for The Wiz is 40; and released her latest CD Please Save Your Love For Me. Ebony Jo-Ann Official Website
Ebony Jo-Ann, André De Shields, Dee Dee Bridgewater and George Faison after the #summerstageis30 performance of #thewizis40 at Rumsey Playfield in New York on August 12, 2015. Photo by Lia Chang
About APAP
The Association of Performing Arts Presenters is the national service, advocacy and membership organization for presenters of the performing arts. APAP is dedicated to developing and supporting a robust performing arts industry and the professionals who work within it. In addition to the annual APAP|NYC conference – the world’s leading convening for the performing arts (January 15-19, 2016) – APAP is the industry’s leading community for networking and knowledge. APAP strengthens and advances your career and the field through professional development, resource sharing, advocacy and civic engagement.
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Lia Chang. Photo by Garth Kravits
Lia Chang is an award-winning filmmaker, a Best Actress nominee, a photographer, and an award-winning multi-platform journalist. Lia has appeared in the films Wolf, New Jack City, A Kiss Before Dying, King of New York, Big Trouble in Little China, The Last Dragon, Taxman and Hide and Seek. She is profiled in Examiner.com, Jade Magazine and Playbill.com.
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