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Brian Stokes Mitchell, Audra McDonald, Billy Porter and More Form Black Theatre United Coalition. "As members of the Black theatre community, we stand together to help protect Black people, Black talent and Black lives of all shapes and orientations in theatre and communities across the country. Our voices are united to empower our community through activism in the pursuit of justice and equality for the betterment of all humanity. We will not be silent. We will be seen. We will be heard. We are here. Join us.”

I am being honored at the NYC City Center Gala. Celebrate the opening night of Ragtime at City Center with a festive gala evening of dinner and dancing at the beautiful Ziegfeld Ballroom. This year’s Gala honors Brian Stokes Mitchell, a member of the original Broadway cast of Ragtime and many City Center productions, and Denise Littlefield Sobel, philanthropist and generous longtime supporter of City Center. Funds raised from all performances help ensure the future of City Center’s founding mission: to provide all New Yorkers affordable access to world-class performing arts. For more information and tickets... 

I was honored to receive another honorary doctorate at Manhattan School of Music at their annual gala along with Ted Chapin. About the event. Watch My speech here.
 

I will be doing 3 episodes of The Gilded Age starting shooting in August. Read more about it...

And... in other news...

Come visit my new YouTube Channel!  

​​My albums will soon be available for streaming. Check back here for links.

Watch and listen to "I won't send Roses" on Broadway.com

I sang for the Lincoln Center's seventh #MemorialForUsAll tribute to honor those we've lost to COVID-19

Please visit American for the Arts and use this page to send a message to your elected representative to tell them to stand up for the arts!

I love followers so please follow me on your favorite platform and be one of the up-to-date "Stokes Folks"

Stokes

Watch Lear deBessonet's TED talk about What's possible when the arts belong to everybody. I demonstrate with an especially stirring rendition of "The Impossible Dream" featuring a marching band and the entire audience. 

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HOPE - Stokes' intro

HOPE - Stokes' intro

Play Video

Stokes sings Hope by Jason Robert Brown

Schedule

July 25 and 26 2024 Sun Valley Idaho - For information and tickets...

 

Thomasville Georgia September 24 2024 - For information and tickets...
 

New dates to come. Sign up for my mailing list to be informed.

ONLINE: Stokes reads an adult fairy tale called "Martin in the Mangroves," a new story, by Stoke's old Friend, Daniel Will-Harris. A man remembers his childhood through the lens of his favorite book about a boy and his best friend, a manatee.  

Hollywood Bowl: Musicals and the Movies--online at PBS. Stokes and Sutton Foster perform selections from Leonard Bernstein’s love letter to New York City, "On the Town."Also featuring Kristin Chenoweth and Audra McDonald.

Schedule
About Stokes

About Stokes

Dubbed “the last leading man” by The New York Times, Tony Award-winner Brian Stokes Mitchell has enjoyed a career that spans more than 40 years in Broadway, television, film, recordings and concert appearances with the country’s finest conductors and orchestras.

Mr. Mitchell received Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle awards for his star turn in Kiss Me, Kate.  He also gave Tony-nominated performances in Man of La Mancha, August Wilson’s King Hedley II, and Ragtime.  Other notable Broadway shows include Kiss of the Spider Woman, Jelly’s Last Jam, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and most recently in Shuffle Along. Off Broadway includes Do Re Mi, Carnival, Kismet and The Bandwagon at City Center Encores and Much Ado About Nothing at the Delacorte Theatre’s Shakespeare in the Park.  Regional includes Sweeney Todd at the Sondheim Celebration at The Kennedy Center with Christine Baranski and The Light in the Piazza at the Los Angeles Opera with Renee Fleming.  Stokes was four days from opening LOVE/LIFE  at City Center Encores when all of Broadway, and most of the country shut down due to the pandemic. However, that didn’t stop him completely. Even while recovering from Covid in March of 2020, he received unexpected additional acclaim and attention for singing The Impossible Dream from his apartment window every night for a number of weeks during the pandemic in honor of the essential workers.

Stokes (as he prefers to be called) was born in Seattle, Washington on Halloween.  His father,  George Mitchell, was a civilian electronics engineer working for the Navy and later the chief Radio officer with both Scripps Institute of Oceanography and Exxon. His father was also one of the original “Tuskegee Airman” having taught radio and blinker code at Moton Field, Alabama. His mother, Lillian Mitchell was an educator.  Stokes spent his childhood in Seattle, San Diego, Guam and the Philippines. He moved back to the United States at the age of 14 and began studying acting, singing and dancing at San Diego Jr. Theatre. Within two years he was performing on various San Diego stages including the Old Globe Theatre and San Diego’s Starlight Opera Company.  A transfer to Los Angeles with the 12th Night Repertory Company while performing multi-cultural theatre for students gave him the opportunity to start a long career in Television and film.

His extensive screen credits began with a guest starring role on Roots: The Next Generations which led to a 7-year stint on Trapper John, MD.  His 40-year long TV/Film run continued with memorable appearances on everything from PBS’ Great Performances to Frasier, The Prince of Egypt (singing “Through Heaven’s Eyes”), Glee, Jumping the Broom, Madam Secretary, The Blacklist, Bull, Elementary and Prodigal Son.  He has had recurring roles on numerous series of late including Mr. Robot, The Path and this season on Evil.  As a voice-over artist he has portrayed dozens of characters on hundreds of animated TV episodes. NPR aired his narration of Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait with the U.S. Marine Band. His second performance at the White House, “A celebration of American Creativity”, was aired on PBS.  Stokes hosted a live-streamed talk show called Crossovers. The six-part show featured iconic performers who made the jump from stage to film, television or music.

An extremely versatile singer, Stokes has performed at venues all over the country spanning jazz, opera, pops, country, and musical theater worlds.  He has performed with John Williams, Gustavo Dudamel, Marvin Hamlisch, Keith Lockhart, Michael Tilson Thomas, Leonard Slatkin, Bobby McFerrin,  Dianne Reeves, The Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Big Band, The Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Muppets. Stokes has made multiple appearances at Carnegie Hall beginning with his debut with the San Francisco Symphony through his televised performance in South Pacific opposite Reba McEntire to his sold-out solo concert, which he continues to perform throughout the U.S.   Venues he has appeared at include Disney Hall, Tanglewood, Ravinia, The Hollywood Bowl, Radio City Music Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall,  Lincoln Center and the Kennedy Center. He has twice been invited to perform at the White House and has sung for Presidents Clinton and Obama.

Stokes has delved deeply into various music disciplines. In addition to singing he began piano studies at the age of 6.  His musical curiosity lead him to an interest in orchestration, arranging and film scoring which he first started studying on his own in his late teens.  He later studied film scoring, orchestration, and conducting through UCLA and scored and conducted a number of “Trapper John, MD” episodes, a series on which he was also a regular cast member. His musical talent has extended to the present day as producer, arranger and orchestrator on his three solo albums.

Plays with Music is an album of classic Broadway tunes that have been musically reimagined but still retain the spirit of the originals. It features the Tony-winning singer accompanied by a full orchestra.  “I see each of my solo albums as a continuation of the same art work.   My first eponymous album was my introduction, full of personal references to my musical influences and experiences,   The second, Simply Broadway, celebrates my Broadway life - but pared down to piano and vocal.  Plays with Music continues with the Broadway theme, but it’s really an album about joyful creativity.”  The song selection includes works from Camelot, The Bandwagon, Mack and Mable, Company, and includes 2 premiers including Flag Song by Stephen Sondheim.

 

Stokes has appeared on more than 20 albums, including a recording of “What The World Needs Now” with other members of the Broadway community to help those affected by the tragedy at The Pulse club in Orlando, Florida.

Stokes has received a number of other awards for both his charitable and artistic work including the New Dramatist’s Distinguished Achievement Award, the Actors Fund Julie Harris Award, Canada’s Dora Mavor Moore Award (The Canadian “Tony”), the Americans for the Arts Outstanding Contribution to the Arts Award,  The Actors Fund Medal of Honor, Chicago’s Sarah Siddons Award, and the Distinguished Performance Award from the Drama League. In November of  2016 he was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame.  

Stokes charitable work is extensive.  Since his 20s has enjoyed working with multiple organizations beginning with tours for the USO and also The March of Dimes.  He received his most recent Tony Award in 2016 for his work as Chairman of the Board of Entertainment Community Fund (formerly The Actor’s Fund), a position he has held from 2004-2023, helping to lead it through the COVID-19 pandemic to help those in the entertainment community. He is also on the Board and Artist Committee of Americans for the Arts, and is a founding member of Black Theatre United.  He is a tireless advocate for both artists and the importance of the Arts in a healthy society.  This year the city of New York honored his contributions to charity and the arts by awarding him the Key to the City.  

As a writer Stokes has contributed to the book Hirschfeld’s Harlem, wrote the preface to At This Theatre, and co-authored the children’s book Lights on Broadway.

For fun he has been known to fly planes and jump out of them (usually not at the same time), and he can ride a bicycle on a high wire.  He resides in New York City with his wife and son.

For more information go to:
BrianStokes.com
Twitter: @bstokesmitchell
Facebook: Brian Stokes Mitchell
Instagram: BrianStokesM

YouTube: Brian Stokes Mitchell
The Entertainment Community Fund (formerly the Actors Fund):  EntertainmentCommunity.org
Americans for the Arts:  AmericansForTheArts.org
Black Theatre United:  BlackTheatreUnited.com

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Music

Music - Coming Again Soon

Stokes Plays With Music

Broadway is Stoked!

Stokes Reimagines Broadway favorites "It's like hearing them for the first time."

Tony Award winner Brian Stokes Mitchell's brings fresh new life into Broadway classics. Featuring a wide variety of show tunes ranging from Irving Berlin to an unrecorded Stephen Sondheim song, Stokes approaches each song as its own mini-play, leaving his indelible mark on such classics as:

  • There's No Business like Show Business

  • Gesticulate

  • By Myself

  • I Won't Send Roses

  • If Ever I Would Leave You

  • The Man I Love

  • Getting Married

  • Hello Young Lovers

  • Wizard Every Day

  • Flag Song

  • Wonderful World

One Singer. One Piano.
Simply BRoadway.
Simply Wonderful.

Brian Stokes Mitchell's extraordinary new recording of classic Broadway standards. Listen and purchase here.

  • Feeing Good

  • How to Handle a Woman

  • It Ain't Necessarily So

  • If I Were a Rich Man

  • Stars

  • Soliloquy (from "Carousel")

  • What Kind of Fool Am I?

  • Some Enchanted Evening

  • Sorry Grateful

  • Finishing the Hat

  • The Impossible Dream

  • Some Other Time

Press

Press

Video: Brian Stokes Mitchell Performs 'Hope' Accompanied by Jason Robert Brown

The Tony winner on how he stays hopeful and what to expect from season 3 of The Gilded Age. Playbill story.

Brian Stokes Mitchell, Audra McDonald, Billy Porter and More Form Black Theatre United Coalition."

As members of the Black theatre community, we stand together to help protect Black people, Black talent and Black lives of all shapes and orientations in theatre and communities across the country. Our voices are united to empower our community through activism in the pursuit of justice and equality for the betterment of all humanity. We will not be silent. We will be seen. We will be heard. We are here. Join us.”

​​My albums will soon be available for streaming. Check back here for links.

Rhiannon Giddens interviews Brian Stokes Mitchell on PBS

Press Archive...

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“When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!” 

― Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

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