Joshua Henry, who graduated from University of Miami's Frost School of Music in 2006, is nominated for a Tony Award for "Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical." Last Fall, the actor played Haywood Patterson in The Scottsboro Boys at New York's Lyceum Theatre.
The musical, styled as a minstrel show, follows the injustice in Jim Crow South when nine African-Americans are falsely accused of rape. Even though the accusers recant their story, the young men languish in jail, retrial after retrial. The musical, written by David Thompson with music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb, ends with Rosa Parks boarding a bus. Although Scottsboro ran for under a month, critics were mesmerized by
Henry's Patterson, especially his song "Go Back Home" (see the video
after the jump.)
Prior to this role, the UM actor's credits included
playing Jennifer Hudson's boyfriend in the first Sex and the City film as well
as small but important roles in In the Heights, The Whiz, and American Idiot.
Just this past April, Henry, who now lives in Harlem, returned to the University of Miami to
perform in their Broadway Unplugged concert. And at the end of the Summer,
the actor will play Jake in American Repertory Theatre's production of
Porgy and Bess at the Loeb Drama Center in Cambridge. The Tony Awards
will be announced on June 12.
The Scottsboro Boys cleaned up in the Tony nominations. In addition to Henry's, it garnered 10 others for Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Score, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical, Best Direction, Best Choreography, Best Orchestrations, Best Scenic Design, Best Lightening Design, and Best Sound Design. Now why did it run for under a month?
Here's another clip:
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