Broadway’s Backstage Power Players

From Alicia Keys to Katori Hall, meet the black faces ruling Broadway behind the scenes

Introducing Loop 21’s Broadway Backstage Pass

With a record three Broadway shows slated for production in the 2011-2012 season featuring predominantly black casts, in work cultivated by black playwrights, this year will be remembered as a banner one for black Broadway fans. In the coming weeks, Loop 21 will take fans behind the scenes and backstage for a special look at the actors, artists and executives of color responsible for the browning of Broadway. Our first installment of this four-week special is featured below.

Broadway’s Backstage Power Players

Many of us are familiar with the famous faces of color that have graced the Broadway stage, from Denzel Washington, to Chris Rock, but some of the most important black Americans working in Broadway are those whose faces you never see. They are the power behind the scenes, from the playwrights whose imaginations give us the stories that fill the stage, to the directors who make their visions come alive and the producers who make it all possible, below a look at Broadway’s Backstage Power Players: 

Alicia Keys
Already a Grammy winner, Keys may soon add TONY winner to her resume. She is producing the critically acclaimed “Stick Fly,” opening in November. Keys will also compose music for the play, about what happens to an upper class black family on Martha’s Vineyard.

Irene Gandy
As the Director of Publicity for Jeffrey Richards productions, Gandy has helped steer the marketing and publicity of some of the most acclaimed Broadway productions in recent memory, among them “August Osage County,” which won the 2008 TONY for Best Play and the musical “Spring Awakening” which won 8 TONY Awards in 2007. The current Richards Productions roster includes the highly anticipated “Porgy and Bess.” Prior to working for Richards, Gandy worked with Broadway legends like Bob Fosse. Over the years, Gandy has become something of a legend herself. As a testament to her standing within the industry, she is now one of the few women of color whose image hangs on the walls of Sardi's the famed Broadway restaurant, an honor traditionally reserved for performing greats like Elizabeth Taylor. (Click HERE to read our interview with Irene Gandy.)

Kenny Leon
The TONY nominated director is the most influential director of color currently working on Broadway. In addition to directing the star-studded 2004 revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun,” he has directed three successful August Wilson plays, the most recent being the award-winning “Fences,” starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. He is slated to direct the upcoming remake of “Steel Magnolias” featuring an all-black cast.

Stephen Byrd
As the Founder of Front Row Productions, Byrd played a key role in mounting the biggest grossing Broadway play of 2008; a revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” starring an all-black, all-star cast featuring James Earl Jones, Terence Howard and others. Prior to becoming a producer, Byrd worked as an investment banker with Goldman Sachs and co-founded a private equity firm.