WATCH THE LIVESTREAM HERE
(FRI, 2/26, 7 PM ET)

The concert will be performed and streamed LIVE from Flushing Town Hall Theater and you can watch live on Flushing Town Hall’s YouTube channel. (RSVP to receive the video link and reminder)
 

Can't make the livestream? The performance will be up for 48 hours after the premiere! Click the button above to stream.

In honor of Black History Month, Flushing Town Hall presents its Black History Trilogy, a three-part series of outstanding Broadway performers showcasing the music and speeches of influential African American artists, scholars, and leaders.

Tony, Grammy and Emmy Award winner and Hadestown star André De Shields concludes the Trilogy with a performance of an excerpt from his self-crafted solo work “Frederick Douglass: Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory.” The one-man show explores the life and achievements of the great emancipator Frederick Douglass.

“Though Douglass began his life as a slave, through heroic effort, he became one of America’s most important and historically influential icons,” said De Shields. “Frederick Douglass: Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory” tells a story about brutality and deliverance that is implausible yet historically accurate. De Shields portrays the Great Black Emancipator with a performance that is as filled with hope and achievement as it is darkness and anger. 

Flushing Town Hall’s Black History Trilogy is part of its FTH At Home! virtual programming, which is presented for free to the general public with a suggested donation to support the artists and the nonprofit cultural organization as they continue to provide programming and entertainment across New York and the world.
 

About the artist

André De Shields is the triple-crown winner of the 2019 awards season, having won the Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, and Tony Awards for best featured actor in a musical for his critically acclaimed performance as Hermes in Hadestown. The Actors’ Equity Foundation followed suit with the Richard Seff Award, honoring veteran stage actors’ best supporting performances of the year. In 2020, Mr. De Shields received the 2020 Grammy Award for Musical Theater Album for Hadestown, the 2020 AUDELCO for Lifetime Achievement, and an honorary Doctor of Arts Degree from Boston Conservatory at Berklee. In 2019, he received the 2019 Project1Voice Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2019 SAGE Joyce Warshow Lifetime Achievement Award, The York Theatre Company’s 2019 Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theatre, and was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame. He received the Key to the City of Baltimore from Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young in August, 2019. Prior to his Tony Award win, Mr. De Shields was best known for his show-stopping performances in four legendary Broadway productions: The Wiz, Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Emmy Award), Play On! (Tony Nomination), and The Full Monty (Tony Nomination). In a career spanning fifty one years, he has distinguished himself as an unparalleled actor, director, and educator, receiving in 2018 the 8th Annual Off Broadway Alliance Legend Award, and the 33rd Annual Bob Harrington Life Achievement Bistro Award. Among his other accolades are the 2009 National Black Theatre Festival’s Living Legend Award and the 2007 Village Voice Obie Award for Sustained Excellence of Performance. His film and TV projects include Anton Ego in Ratatouille: The TikTok Tok Musical, the Algebra Tutor in “John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch”  on Netflix, Chubby in “Katy Keene” on the CW, and as Wyndham on “Almost Family.” He can next be seen as Gavin Plimsoll in Charles Busch’s  new film, The Sixth Reel. De Shields is a proud member of AEA, SAG-AFTRA, and SDC. andredeshields.com