Costume Designer

Activist. Orator. Husband. Leader. One of the most misunderstood figures in US history, Malcolm X was an icon of the civil rights movement. Get to know the man through a series of biographical vignettes that follow Malcolm X from his interrupted childhood in Lansing, Michigan to his tragic murder in Harlem. With a score by Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Anthony Davis (Central Park Five) that fuses elements of modernism, minimalism, and jazz, X produces a sound world that is unmistakably individual.

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X: The Life & Times of Malcolm X

Seattle Center

This vivid, impressionistic portrait of legendary jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton features Tony, Emmy, and Grammy winner Billy Porter (Pose) as the Chimney Man and Tony Award winner Joaquina Kalukango (Paradise Square) as Anita in a cast led by visionary director Robert O’Hara (A Raisin in the Sun). Written by George C. Wolfe (Shuffle Along) and set to Morton’s iconic music, Jelly’s Last Jam tells a fable of American history, legacy, and truth. In this production, original Broadway cast members Mamie Duncan-Gibbs, Stephanie Pope Lofgren, and Allison M. Williams, reprise their roles as the Hunnies.

Jelly's Last Jam

New York City Center

Directed by Tony Award nominee Saheem Ali (Fat Ham), this story of the legendary artists who recorded the album features the soul-stirring music of Cuba’s golden age, with a book by Marco Ramirez (Drama Desk Award winner, The Royale), choreography by Patricia Delgado and Tony Award winner Justin Peck (Carousel, Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story) and a music team led by Tony Award winner David Yazbek (The Band’s Visit).

Buena Vista Social Club

Atlantic Theater Company

Anthony Davis’s groundbreaking and influential opera, which premiered in 1986, arrives at the Met at long last. Theater luminary and Tony-nominated director of Slave Play Robert O’Hara oversees a potent new staging that imagines Malcolm as an Everyman whose story transcends time and space. An exceptional cast of breakout artists and young Met stars enliven the operatic retelling of the civil rights leader’s life. Baritone Will Liverman, who triumphed in the Met premiere of Fire Shut Up in My Bones, sings Malcolm X, alongside soprano Leah Hawkins as his mother, Louise; mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis as his sister Ella; bass-baritone Michael Sumuel as his brother Reginald; and tenor Victor Ryan Robertson as Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. Kazem Abdullah conducts the newly revised score, which provides a layered, jazz-inflected setting for the esteemed writer Thulani Davis’s libretto.

X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X

Lincoln Center

Grammy Award-winning artist Alicia Keys and Pulitzer Prize finalist playwright Kristoffer Diaz bring their exhilarating coming-of-age musical HELL’S KITCHEN to The Public this fall.

In a cramped apartment hanging off the side of Times Square, 17-year-old Ali is desperate to get her piece of the New York dream. Ali’s mother is just as determined to protect her daughter from the same mistakes she made. When Ali falls for a talented young drummer, both mother and daughter must face hard truths about race, defiance, and growing up. Ali feels trapped, until the sound of a neighbor playing piano opens the door to an unexpected friendship and a radically different future.

Hell's Kitchen

Public Theater

This 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning thriller has rocketed back into the spotlight, thanks to this 2020 Tony Award®-winning Best Revival from Roundabout Theatre Company. “This is a play that deserves to be staged regularly all over America—though it’s hard to imagine that it will ever be done better than this. It keeps you guessing all the way to the final curtain” (The Wall Street Journal).

In 1944, on a Louisiana Army base, two shots ring out. A Black sergeant is murdered. And a series of interrogations triggers a gripping barrage of questions about sacrifice, service, and identity in America. Broadway’s Norm Lewis leads a powerhouse cast in the show Variety calls “a knock-your-socks-off-drama," directed by Tony winner Kenny Leon.

Dede Ayite

Costume Designer

Events

Feb 24 - Mar 9, 2024

X: The Life & Times of Malcolm X · Seattle Opera

Feb 21 - Mar 3, 2024

Jelly's Last Jam · New York City Center

Nov 18 - Dec 31, 2023

Buena Vista Social Club · Atlantic Theater Company

Nov 3 - Dec 2, 2023

X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X · The Metropolitan Opera

Oct 24 - Dec 10, 2023

Hell's Kitchen · Public Theater

About

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