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Legends Hall of Fame Inductee

Kenny Leon

Kenny Leon is a Tony Award and Obie Award-winning and Emmy-nominated Broadway and television direc-
tor. Most recently, he directed the Broadway premiere of Charles Fuller’s Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece,
A Soldier’s Play, starring Blair Underwood and David Alan Grier at Roundabout Theatre Company. He also
directed this past summer’s acclaimed production of Much Ado About Nothing at the Delacorte/Shakespeare
in the Park. His Broadway credits include the recent production of A Soldier’s Play, American Son starring Kerry
Washington and Steven Pasquale which was also adapted for Netflix, the revival of Children of a Lesser God,
the Tupac musical Holler If Ya Hear Me, A Raisin in the Sun starring Denzel Washington (Tony Award for Best
Direction of a Play and Best Revival of a Play), The Mountaintop starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett,
Stick Fly produced by Alicia Keys, August Wilson’s Fences (which garnered ten Tony nominations and won
three Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Play), Gem of the Ocean and Radio Golf, as well as A Raisin in
Kenny Leon the Sun starring Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, Phylicia Rashad, and Audra McDonald. He also directed Smart People
Tony Award and Obie Award- and The Underlying Chris for Second Stage.
winning, Emmy-nominated
Broadway TV Director
Co-Founder Leon’s television work includes “Hairspray Live!”, and “The Wiz Live!” on NBC. He recently released his memoir
True Colors Theatre Company Take You Wherever You Go. He is the recipient of the 2016 Mr. Abbott Award for Lifetime Achievement in
Directing and the 2010 Award for Excellence in Directing from the Drama League. Mr. Leon serves on the board
of New York’s Public Theater and is Artistic Director Emeritus of Atlanta’s Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre
Company.

Prior to co-founding True Colors Theatre Company, he served 11 years as Artistic Director of The Alliance The-
atre, where he produced the premieres of Disney’s Elaborate Lives: The Legend of Aida, Pearl Cleage’s Blues
for an Alabama Sky and Alfred Uhry’s The Last Night of Ballyhoo. Other directorial credits include Alicia Keys
World Tour, Toni Morrison’s opera Margaret Garner, the world premiere of Flashdance The Musical, and the
complete August Wilson Century Cycle at the Kennedy Center.

Leon is a sought after motivational speaker that has done acting and theatre workshops at universities and
corporate offices around the country, South Africa and Ireland. He has directed in the UK, and extensively
throughout the US, including Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, Boston’s Huntington Theatre, Baltimore’s Center
Stage, Los Angeles’ Center Theatre Group and New York’s Public Theatre. Leon is a graduate of Clark Atlanta
and is an honorary Ph.D. recipient of Clark Atlanta and Roosevelt Universities and has served as the Denzel
Washington Chair at Fordham University.

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