2010 TONY AWARD® NOMINATIONS
SHAWN “JAY-Z” CARTER, WILL & JADA PINKETT SMITH
RUTH & STEPHEN HENDEL AND ROY GABAY

PRESENT

FELA!

RECIPIENT OF 11 2010 TONY® AWARD NOMINATIONS

THE MOST NOMINATIONS OF ANY NEW MUSICAL ON BROADWAY!

INCLUDING

BEST MUSICAL

ACTOR IN A MUSICAL– SAHR NGAUJAH

FEATURED ACTRESS IN A MUSICAL – LILLIAS WHITE

DIRECTOR OF A MUSICAL – BILL T. JONES

CHOREOGRAPHY – BILL T. JONES

BOOK OF A MUSICAL – BILL T. JONES & JIM LEWIS

ORCHESTRATIONS – AARON JOHNSON

SCENIC DESIGN OF A MUSICAL – MARINA DRAGHICI

COSTUME DESIGN OF A MUSICAL – MARINA DRAGHICI

LIGHTING DESIGN OF A MUSICAL – ROBERT WIERZEL

SOUND DESIGN OF A MUSICAL – ROBERT KAPLOWITZ

Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, Will & Jada Pinkett Smith, Ruth & Stephen Hendel and Roy Gabay are thrilled to announce that the Broadway production of Fela!, the new musical based on the life and music of groundbreaking African composer, performer and activist Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, is the recipient of 11 2010 Tony® Award nominations, the most nominations of any new musical on Broadway, including Best Musical, Actor (Sahr Ngaujah), Featured Actress (Lillias White), Director of a Musical (Bill T. Jones), Choreography (Bill T. Jones), Book of a Musical (Bill T. Jones and Jim Lewis), Orchestrations (Aaron Johnson), Scenic Design of a Musical (Marina Draghici), Costume Design of a Musical (Marina Draghici), Lighting Design of a Musical (Robert Wierzel) and Sound Design of a Musical (Robert Kaplowitz).  Fela! is currently playing at Broadway’s Eugene O’Neill Theatre (230 West 49th Street), where it opened to rave reviews on November 23, 2009. 

The Tony® Awards will be broadcast in a live three-hour ceremony from Radio City Music Hall on the CBS television network on Sunday, June 13, 2010.  Visit www.TonyAwards.com for more info.

Directed and choreographed by Tony® Award-winner Bill T. Jones with a book by Jim Lewis, Fela! welcomes its audience into the extravagant, decadent and rebellious world of Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.  Using his pioneering music (a blend of jazz, funk and African rhythm and harmonies), Fela! exploresKuti's controversial life as artist, political activist and revolutionary musician.  Featuring many of Fela Kuti's most captivating songs and Bill T. Jones’s imaginative staging, Fela! is a provocative hybrid of concert, dance and musical theater.

Upon its November 23 opening, Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote, “There should be dancing in the streets.  The hot (and seriously cool) energy that comes from the musical gospel preached by the title character of Fela! feels as if it could stretch easily to the borders of Manhattan and then across a river or two.  There has never been anything on Broadway like this production."  The New York Post’s Elisabeth Vincentelli cheered, “There’s enough energy to short circuit Con Ed.”  David Cote of Time Out New York, in giving it 5 stars (out of 5) raved, “Fela! is more than a musical; it’s an ecstatic phenomenon."  And Jennifer Farrar from the Associated Press exclaimed, “An exuberant celebration!”

Fela! is produced by Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, Will & Jada Pinkett Smith, Ruth & Stephen Hendel, Roy Gabay, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Edward Tyler Nahem, Slava Smolokowski, Chip Meyrelles/Ken Greiner, Douglas G. Smith, Steve Semlitz/Cathy Glazer, Daryl Roth/True Love Productions, Susan Dietz/Mort Swinsky and Knitting Factory Entertainment.  In association with Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson.

THE NOMINEES

ACTOR IN A MUSICAL: SAHR NGAUJAH (Fela Anikulapo-Kuti) has worked with directors from all over the world, including Gerrit Timmers and Faulk Richter. Film/TV: Passing Glory (TNT), A Lesson Before Dying (HBO), The Signal (Magnolia), Stomp the Yard (Sony), Blood Done Sign My Name (now in cinemas). Sahr began as a director under Freddie Hendricks, National Black Arts Festival, Tweetakt Festival, Antwerp.  During eight years of work in Amsterdam, he was a theatre director and developer with Rotterdam’s Lef, ACT Festival and collaborator with Made n da Shade. A Dasarts graduate, Amsterdam, 2006, Sahr is a first generation Sierra Leonean.  He is currently the art director for the Sierra Leone hiphop act Bajah + The Dry Eye Crew.

FEATURED ACTRESS IN A MUSICAL: LILLIAS WHITE (Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti), received Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for her performance as Sonia in The Life. Other Broadway credits: Barnum, Dreamgirls, Cats, Once on This Island, How to Succeed… and Chicago. Film/TV: Pieces of April, Game 6, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Sesame Street (Emmy), Law & Order: SVU, The Jury, NYPD Blue, PBS performance at the White House, Great Performance's South Pacific and Disney’s Hercules. Off-Broadway: Crowns (AUDELCO Award), William Finn’s Romance in Hard Times (Obie), The Best Is Yet to Come (2009 L.A. Ovation Award nom.) and as Dinah Washington in Dinah Was. Recordings: Dreamgirls in Concert and From Brooklyn to Broadway.

DIRECTOR OF A MUSICAL, CHOREOGRAPHY: BILL T. JONES is a 2007 Tony® Award winner and the recipient of the 2007 Obie Award and 2006 Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation CALLAWAY Award for his choreography for Spring Awakening, the recipient of the 2007 USA Eileen Harris Norton Fellowship, the 2006 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Choreography for The Seven, the 2005 Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement, the prestigious 2005 Wexner Prize, and the Aaron Davis Hall Harlem Renaissance Award. He is also a MacArthur “Genius” Award recipient in 1994, named one of America’s Irreplaceable Dance Treasures by the Dance Heritage Coalition in 2000, and was awarded The 2003 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for which recipients are considered trailblazers who have redefined their art and reshaped the cultural landscape. He began his dance training at the State University of New York at Binghamton (SUNY), where he studied classical ballet and modern dance. After living in Amsterdam, Mr. Jones returned to SUNY, where he became co-founder of the American Dance Asylum in 1973. Before forming Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in 1982, Mr. Jones choreographed and performed nationally and internationally as a soloist and duet company with his late partner, Arnie Zane. 

BOOK OF A MUSICAL: JIM LEWIS – Broadway credits include Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Tony®, Drama Desk Nominations), Dangerous Games (with Graciela Daniele), Tango Apaisionado. Dance/Opera: Paul Dresher’s The Tyrant; Ballet Hispanico’s Nightclub; Philip Glass’ Les Enfants Terribles (BAM); PastFORWARD (Mikhail Baryshnikov, BAM). Translations: Ionesco’s The Chairs; Ibsen’s Lady From The Sea. Dramaturge: House Arrest (Anna Deavere Smith); Dream On Monkey Mountain (Bill T. Jones); Art Spiegelman’s Drawn To Death; Dido And Aeneas (Spoleto); Bill T. Jones 20th Anniversary Still/Here (BAM), This Beautiful City with The Civilians (Vineyard Theatre).

SCENIC DESIGN, COSTUME DESIGN: MARINA DRAGHICI was born in Bucharest, Romania. She emigrated to the United States where she graduated from the Yale School of Drama in 1988. Prior to FELA! Marina has collaborated with Bill T. Jones on Dream on a Monkey Mountain (Guthrie Theatre) and 24 Images Secondes (Lyons Opera). Her work has been seen at the Paris National Opera, Zurich Opera, Grand Theatre de Bordeaux, Opera de Nice, NYCO, Edinburgh Festival, Glimmerglass Opera, National Theatre of Prague, Public Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club and Lincoln Center among many other venues in the US and abroad. Awards: Lucille Lortel, Obie and numerous nominations. Film/TV: The Grey Zone, Heights, Dexter, Twelve and Holding, S.O.P., Rage, The Cake Eaters, Precious: based on Sapphire’s novel Push.

LIGHTING DESIGN: ROBERT WIERZEL has collaborated with Bill T. Jones and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company for more than 23 years including work at the Lyon Opera Ballet; Berlin Opera Ballet and  The Louvre Museum (Walking the Line).  Broadway: David Copperfield’s Dreams and Nightmares.  Off-Broadway: New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater, Signature Theatre, Roundabout Theatre Company, Playwrights Horizons. Regional: Chicago Shakespeare, Hartford Stage, Long Wharf, Goodman Theatre, Guthrie Theater, Mark Taper Forum. He has collaborated with Grace  Jones (Hurricane Tour), the composer Philip Glass and  with opera companies of Paris (Garnier), Tokyo, San Francisco, Seattle, Houston, Washington, Chicago and New York. He is the recipient of numerous awards including several Bessie-Dance and Performance Awards for his collaborations with Bill T. Jones.

SOUND DESIGN: ROBERT KAPLOWITZ – Broadway: Heather MacDonald’s An Almost Holy Picture (Roundabout/ American Airlines).  Off Broadway: 200+ credits for music and/or sound design include Bill T. Jone’s Fela (37 Arts); John Beluso’s The Poor Itch, Tracy Scott Wilson’s The Story, Lemon Anderson’s County of Kings, and Neil LaBute’s Wrecks (Public); Tarell Alvin McRaney’s Wig Out and Anne Washburn’s The Internationalist (Vineyard); David Adjmi’s Stunning (Lincoln Center); Adam Bock’s The Thugs (SoHo Rep); Abbie Spalin’s Pumpgirl (MTC) and Eric Jackson’s drag adaptation of Carrie (PS 122).  Residencies include The O'Neill Playwrights Conference and Sundance Theater Festivals.  Awards include an Obie for Sustained Excellence in Sound Design (2006-7), an Audelco and a handful of Lortel nominations.

ORCHESTRATIONS: AARON JOHNSON – Born in Iowa City and raised on Long Island, Aaron Johnson began studying music at the Mannes Prep program in New York, and continued at The New School, where he now teaches. He has become an in-demand trombonist, arranger, and composer in the New York music scene, and has recorded and performed with such artists as Paul Simon, Medeski, Martin, and Wood, TV on the Radio, The Roots, Wu-Tang-Clan, Angelique Kidjo and Femi Kuti. He joined Antibalas in 2000, and began conducting the band in 2001. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and sons.

For more information about Fela! and the 11 2010 Tony® Award nominations it received, please visit www.FelaOnBroadway.com. 

Fela Anikulapo-Kuti

Fela Ransome Kuti was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, north of Lagos in 1938. His father was a Christian schoolmaster, minister and master pianist and his mother was a world-recognized feminist leader, who was very active in the anti-colonial Nigerian women's movement during the struggle for independence. 

Fela was educated in Nigeria amongst the indigenous elite.  Ironically, many of his classmates in his Nigerian school would become the very military leaders he so vociferously opposed. 

With medical aspirations for their offspring (Fela’s older brother, Koye, was to become a Deputy Director of the World Health Organization and his younger brother, Beko, President of the Nigerian Medical Association) in 1958 Fela's parents sent him to London for a medical education. Instead, he registered at Trinity College's school of music where he studied composition and chose the trumpet as his instrument. Quickly tiring of European composers, Fela, struck by Miles Davis and Frank Sinatra, formed the Koola Lobitos in 1961, and his band became a fixture in London's club scene. Two years later, Fela returned to Nigeria, restarted the Koola Lobitos, and became influenced by James Brown. Trying to find an authentic musical voice, he added elements of traditional Yoruba, high life and jazz, and "Afrobeat" was born. In 1969, Fela's Koola Lobitos traveled to Los Angeles to tour and record. During his eight months in the US, with LA as a home base, Fela befriended Sandra Isidore, who introduced him to the writings and politics of Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver and other proponents of Black nationalism and Afrocentrism.

With this new politically explicit and critical worldview, Fela reformed the Koola Lobitos as Nigeria 70 and returned to Lagos. He founded a commune/recording studio called the Kalakuta Republic, complete with his own private nightclub, The Shrine, and Fela dropped his given middle name "Ransome," and replaced it with a Yoruba name "Anikulapo" (meaning "he who carries death in his pouch"). Playing constantly and recording at a ferocious pace, Fela and band (who were now called Africa 70) became huge stars in West Africa and beyond. His music served as a rallying cry for the disenfranchised, critiquing the military government, and made Fela not only a pop star but thrust him into political life. People took to the streets singing his songs and the military responded by viciously harassing Fela, jailing him and nearly killing him on several occasions.

In 1977, during a government-sanctioned attack on his Kalakuta Republic commune, Fela and other members of his commune were arrested; Fela himself suffered a fractured skull as well as other broken bones; a number of women living at Kalakuta were beaten and raped; and his 82-year old mother was thrown from an upstairs window, inflicting injuries that would later prove fatal. The soldiers set fire to the compound and prevented fire fighters from reaching the area. Fela's recording studio, all his master tapes and musical instruments and the only known copy of his self-financed film Black President were destroyed.

After the Kalakuta tragedy, Fela briefly lived in exile in Ghana, returning to Nigeria in 1978. A year later, he formed his own political party, MOP (Movement of the People) and ran for president in two elections, although his campaigning was consistently blocked by the military. As the '80s ended, Fela recorded blistering attacks against Nigeria's corrupt military government.

Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was arrested more than two hundred times in his life, and charged with almost every conceivable crime, although only serving one eighteen month sentence in jail for a currency violation. Despite this constant harassment he continued to live in Nigeria even though, as an icon in the international world of rock and roll, soul, jazz and hip-hop, he could have at any point abandoned Nigeria and led the life of an international music superstar.  His death on August 3, 1997 of complications from AIDS deeply affected musicians and fans internationally, as a unique and ineffable musical and sociopolitical voice was lost. In Nigeria one million people attended his funeral. His incredible body of work, almost 70 albums, is now available, through public demand, all over the world.