THE LION KING Choreographer Garth Fagan to Receive WSU Apple Award Next Month

Garth Fagan, Tony Award winner for "Best Choreography" in The Lion King, founder and artistic director of Garth Fagan Dance, is receiving the Apple Award from Wayne State University's Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance. "A Conversation with Apple Award Recipient Garth Fagan" will be hosted at the Berman Center for the Performing Arts on March 28 at 7:00 p.m. Mr. Fagan will appear in an "actors studio" style interview and question-and-answer session.

Tickets are $25 and may be purchased at wsushows.com, at 313- 577-2972 at the Wayne State University or at the Berman Center for the Performing Arts Box Office.

Fagan, a Wayne State University alumni, began his career when he toured Latin America with Ivy Baxter and her national dance company from Jamaica. Baxter and two other famed dance teachers from the Caribbean, Pearl Primus and Lavinia Williams, were major influences on Fagan. In New York City, Fagan studied with Martha Graham, Jose Limon, Mary Hinkson, and Alvin Ailey, who were all central to his development. Fagan was director of Detroit's All-City Eastside Dance Company and principal soloist and choreographer for Detroit Contemporary Dance Company and Dance Theatre of Detroit.

Garth Fagan was awarded the prestigious 1998 Tony Award, England's 2000 Laurence Olivier Award, and Australia's 2004 Helpmann Award for his path-breaking choreography in Walt Disney's The Lion King. He also received the 1998 Drama Desk Award, 1998 Outer Critics Circle Award, 1998 Astaire Award, 2001 Ovation Award for his work on the Broadway production, which opened in fall 1997 to extraordinary critical praise

The Apple Award, named for Sarah Applebaum Nederlander, is given by the Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance at Wayne State University on behalf of the Nederlander family. In 2001, the Nederlander family formed a partnership with the College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts at Wayne State University, establishing the Sarah Applebaum Nederlander Award for Excellence in Theatre; an annual theatre award and visiting artist fund in their mother's name. The Apple Award brings a nationally prominent theatre professional to Detroit and the Wayne State University campus as a guest lecturer to interact with and educate the rising stars of the Department of Theatre and Dance through master classes and a question-and-answer style forum. Previous Apple Award winners include Neil Simon, Carol Channing, Stephen Schwartz, Mandy Patinkin, Patti Lupone, Marvin Hamlisch, Elaine Stritch, and Tom Skerritt.

About Theatre & Dance at Wayne - Wayne State University's Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance serves nearly 300 students as a nexus of performance, production, management, and research. It provides a wide choice of degree programs that allow students the flexibility to study these disciplines broadly or to concentrate more specifically. The dance program is one of the longest-running in the U.S., tracing its beginning to Ruth Lovell Murray's founding of the Dance Workshop in 1928. The theatre program is internationally recognized as a training ground for theatre professionals. The Hilberry Theatre is the nation's longest-running graduate repertory company. The two programs are accredited by the National Association of Schools of Theatre and the National Association of Schools of Dance, respectively.

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