Ben Vereen (born October 10, 1946) is an American actor, dancer, and singer who has appeared in numerous Broadway theatre shows. Vereen graduated from Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts.
Vereen was born Benjamin Augustus Middleton on October 10, 1946, in Miami, Florida. While still an infant, Vereen and his family relocated to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. He discovered he was adopted when he applied for a passport to join Sammy Davis, Jr. on a tour of "Golden Boy" to London when he was 25. He was adopted by James Vereen, a paint-factory worker and his wife, Pauline, who worked as a maid.
During his pre-teen years, he exhibited an innate talent for drama and dance and often performed in local variety shows. At the age of 14, Vereen enrolled at the High School of Performing Arts, where he studied under world-renowned choreographers Martha Graham, George Balanchine, and Jerome Robbins. Upon his graduation, he struggled to find suitable stage work and was often forced to take odd jobs to supplement his income. He was 18 years old when he made his New York stage bow off-off Broadway in The Prodigal Son at the Greenwich Mews Theater. By the following year, he was in Las Vegas, performing in Bob Fosse's production of Sweet Charity, a show with which he toured in 1967–68. He returned to New York City to play Claude in Hair in the Broadway production, before joining the national touring company.
Shoshana Elise Bean (born September 1, 1977) is an American stage actress, singer and songwriter known for her roles in Broadway musicals. She is best known for playing Elphaba on Broadway in the musical Wicked.
Bean was raised in Portland, Oregon. She is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), where she received a B.F.A. in Musical Theatre in 1999. At CCM she was roommates with Kristy Cates, a fellow Wicked alum.
Shortly after moving to New York City, she was cast in the 2000 Off-Broadway revival of Godspell. Bean subsequently performed in the national tour of Leader of the Pack. She was also an original cast member in the Tony Award-winning production of Broadway's Hairspray, originating the role of Shelley and understudying the roles of Tracy Turnblad, Velma Von Tussle, and Prudy Pingleton. During this time she was also a member of the Broadway Inspirational Voices Gospel Choir.
In 2001, she sang back-up for Michael Jackson's 30th anniversary concert celebration at Madison Square Garden.
Michael Burstein (born July 1, 1945) is an American actor known onstage as Mike Burstyn. He was born in New York City to the late Yiddish-language actors, Pesach Burstein and Lillian Lux. He is not related to actress Ellen Burstyn (née Edna Rae Gillooly).
He began performing on stage at Yiddish theaters from childhood, in musicals and melodramas produced by his father, Pesach Burstein, especially as part of the Four Bursteins. (Mike and his twin sister were billed as Motele and Zisele) in standard Pesach Burstein productions like A Khasene in Shtetl (A Wedding in the Village). He headed out on his own after reaching adulthood, in a bid to reach audiences bigger than the Yiddish stage.
He has performed on television in the United States, Israel, and the Netherlands. He has performed on Broadway, the Yiddish theater, and on the Israeli stage. He had his own show, The Mike Burstyn Show (1978–1981). He was cast as the lead in Israel Becker's Shnei Kuni Leml (The Flying Matchmaker), an Israeli film. In 1981, he took part in the Israeli heats of the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Sviv kol ha'olam". The song was placed sixth.[citation needed]
Ernie Manouse (born September 1, 1969 in Binghamton, New York) is an American television host, radio personality, writer and producer. He currently hosts the interview show InnerVIEWS with Ernie Manouse, produced by HoustonPBS. His work with HoustonPBS has met critical acclaim in the southern United States, earning him numerous KATIE awards and regional Emmy Awards
Manouse was born Ernest David Manouse in Binghamton, New York. He is of Greek descent. He attended Loyola University Chicago and studied to be a music video director. While in college, he guest-hosted Outlook, a Chicago-based radio show, with a classmate. Their radio presentation received such a positive reaction that Outlook hired them permanently.
Manouse began his career in television with NBC Network News, then moved into radio withWLS and WLUW in Chicago, and then back to TV at HoustonPBS. Ernie has since worked his way through many aspects of talk shows – from producing sex therapy call-in radio shows Sex Talk and The Phyllis Levy Show to hosting his own brand of chat and magazine programs. He can also be seen on PBS Stations across the country hosting numerous pledge and entertainment specials, including three of public television’s most successful pledge events with financial guru Suze Orman.
Carol Creighton Burnett (born April 26, 1933) is an American actress, comedian, singer, dancer and writer. Burnett started her career in New York. After becoming a hit on Broadway, she made her television debut. After successful appearances on The Garry Moore Show, Burnett moved to Los Angeles and began an eleven-year run on The Carol Burnett Show which was aired on CBS television from 1967 to 1978. With roots in vaudeville, The Carol Burnett Show was a variety show which combined comedy sketches, song, and dance. The comedy sketches included film parodies and character pieces. Burnett created many characters during the show's television run.
Burnett was born in San Antonio, Texas, the daughter of Ina Louise (née Creighton), a publicity writer for movie studios, and Joseph Thomas Burnett, a movie theater manager. Both of her parents suffered from alcoholism, and at a young age she was left with her grandmother, Mabel Eudora White. Her parents divorced in the late 1930s, and Burnett and her grandmother moved to an apartment near her mother’s in an impoverished area of Hollywood. There, they stayed in a boarding house with her younger half-sister Chrissy.