Broadway star Ariana DeBose is returning to her roots to host the 75th Annual Tony Awards on June 12 at New York City’s famous Radio City Music Hall, the American Theater Wing announced Wednesday.
Ariana DeBose at the Academy Awards after her Oscar win earlier this year.
Fresh from the Academy Awards in March where she won an Oscar for her powerful role as Anita in Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” remake, DeBose will certainly bring her infectious energy to this year’s Tony’s. The Oscar Winner will lead the presentation that airs live on CBS and on Paramount.
“After the challenging last two years, there is no one better to bring the theater community together on this important night honoring the best of Broadway and share the joys of live performing once again than this extraordinarily talented artist,” said Jack Sussman, executive vice president of specials, music, live events and alternative programming at CBS.
This year’s ceremony will come nine months after Last year’s ceremony, co-hosted by Tony winners Audra McDonald and Leslie Odom Jr., and more than two years after the previous ceremony due to Covid-19. The pandemic forced Broadway to go dark from March 2020 to September 2021.
Before DeBose became a breakout star as Anita in Spielberg’s ‘West Side Story” remake, she was a Broadway veteran known for her roles in “The Bullet,” the smash-hit “Hamilton,” “A Bronx Tale,” “Summer: The Donna Summer Musical,” for which she earned a Tony nomination for her role as Disco Donna. She also played roles in “Pippin,” “Motown the Musical,” “Bring It On: The Musical” and “Company.” DeBose also appeared in Ryan Murphy’s adaptation of “The Prom” alongside Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman.
Ariana DeBose
The theater veteran gained critical acclaim in Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation of West Side Story in 2021 for which she earned a British Academy Film Award, a Critics’ Choice Movie Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress.
She also won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, making her the first Afro-Latina and openly queer woman to receive this award. In all, DeBose has four awards and six nominations.
The Tony Awards are produced in collaboration with Tony Award Productions, a joint venture of the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing, and White Cherry Entertainment
ABOUT FLORENCE MAFOMEMEH – FOUNDER, OWNER AND EDITOR OF BNN
Florence Mafomemeh is the founder, owner and editor of Black Nation News – BNN
Mafomemeh is a multimedia, backpack journalist and three-time B Free award-winning community video producer. She produces long and short form video and audio stories and writes news for broadcast and online media. She is very passionate about stories that impact the lives of ordinary people.
A native of Cameroon in West Africa, Mafomemeh wanted to become a journalist since the time she was in secondary school. As a news junkie, she realized that news hardly reach all ordinary people and their stories were not being told. She told herself that she would be a journalist so that she would bring the news to them and give them a voice by telling their stories to the world.
Growing up, Mafomemeh watched, read and listened to a lot of national and international news and used much of her pocket allowance to buy international news magazines like Time and Complete Football International. In order to not miss the news, she slept with a small radio under her pillow and usually left a tape for news to be recorded for her when she was not at home.
Currently living in New York City, Mafomemeh graduated from Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY in 2019 with a master’s degree in Journalism. While in school, she produced radio and TV News stories on deadline as a one-man band. She also reported news stories around New York City for the NYCITY News Service. Florence was also a news reporter and co-anchor for 219 West, a TV News Magazine that aired on CUNY-TV.
As a field Community video Producer at Brooklyn Free Speech TV, Mafomemeh produces news stories that highlight issues in East New York and New York City. Her stories have had eight B Free Award nominations and three wins – The George Stoney B Free Awards for Social Impact and B-Informed, and The B Free People’s Choice Award. Florence has also freelanced for NYCPolitics.com and was a NYS Election Reporting Fellow with the Center for Community Media at CUNY.
Mafomemeh also has a B.S. in Broadcast Journalism from CUNY- Brooklyn College, a B.A. in English, and an M.A. in the Literatures in English and Commonwealth nations from the University of Yaounde 1 in Cameroon. She specialized/majored in Caribbean Literature, focusing on the West Indies where she did her dissertation on the works of V.S. Naipaul. She also has certificates in journalism, community news production & reporting, proofreading and editing 101 from New York University-SCPS, People’s Production House and Teacher’s College, Columbia University.
While at people’s Production House, Mafomemeh was radio reporter and co-host of Global Movements Urban Struggles-GMUS on WBAI Radio. GMUS was a show that tackled various issues facing various communities in New York City and around the United States.
Having lived through many challenging experiences and seeing people going through them everyday, Mafomemeh is passionate about telling stories that matter. She is fulfilling her childhood dream of telling ordinary people’s stories that impact their lives and help to inspire others.
I hope you have a great time here on BNN and find something to take with you even if it is just a good laugh! Please, do not forget to subscribe to/sign up for the newsletter with your e-mail address to receive notifications of new posts. Please, also show me some love by sharing the link to the site.
Also check out my personal blog at Talking Point With Florence where you can also see the “MORE YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ME” blog post of November 2, 2013.
ABOUT FLORENCE MAFOMEMEH – FOUNDER, OWNER AND EDITOR OF BNN
Florence Mafomemeh is the founder, owner and editor of Black Nation News – BNN
Mafomemeh is a multimedia, backpack journalist and three-time B Free award-winning community video producer. She produces long and short form video and audio stories and writes news for broadcast and online media. She is very passionate about stories that impact the lives of ordinary people.
A native of Cameroon in West Africa, Mafomemeh wanted to become a journalist since the time she was in secondary school. As a news junkie, she realized that news hardly reach all ordinary people and their stories were not being told. She told herself that she would be a journalist so that she would bring the news to them and give them a voice by telling their stories to the world.
Growing up, Mafomemeh watched, read and listened to a lot of national and international news and used much of her pocket allowance to buy international news magazines like Time and Complete Football International. In order to not miss the news, she slept with a small radio under her pillow and usually left a tape for news to be recorded for her when she was not at home.
Currently living in New York City, Mafomemeh graduated from Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY in 2019 with a master’s degree in Journalism. While in school, she produced radio and TV News stories on deadline as a one-man band. She also reported news stories around New York City for the NYCITY News Service. Florence was also a news reporter and co-anchor for 219 West, a TV News Magazine that aired on CUNY-TV.
As a field Community video Producer at Brooklyn Free Speech TV, Mafomemeh produces news stories that highlight issues in East New York and New York City. Her stories have had eight B Free Award nominations and three wins – The George Stoney B Free Awards for Social Impact and B-Informed, and The B Free People’s Choice Award. Florence has also freelanced for NYCPolitics.com and was a NYS Election Reporting Fellow with the Center for Community Media at CUNY.
Mafomemeh also has a B.S. in Broadcast Journalism from CUNY- Brooklyn College, a B.A. in English, and an M.A. in the Literatures in English and Commonwealth nations from the University of Yaounde 1 in Cameroon. She specialized/majored in Caribbean Literature, focusing on the West Indies where she did her dissertation on the works of V.S. Naipaul. She also has certificates in journalism, community news production & reporting, proofreading and editing 101 from New York University-SCPS, People’s Production House and Teacher’s College, Columbia University.
While at people’s Production House, Mafomemeh was radio reporter and co-host of Global Movements Urban Struggles-GMUS on WBAI Radio. GMUS was a show that tackled various issues facing various communities in New York City and around the United States.
Having lived through many challenging experiences and seeing people going through them everyday, Mafomemeh is passionate about telling stories that matter. She is fulfilling her childhood dream of telling ordinary people’s stories that impact their lives and help to inspire others.
I hope you have a great time here on BNN and find something to take with you even if it is just a good laugh! Please, do not forget to subscribe to/sign up for the newsletter with your e-mail address to receive notifications of new posts. Please, also show me some love by sharing the link to the site.
Also check out my personal blog at Talking Point With Florence where you can also see the “MORE YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ME” blog post of November 2, 2013.
