(UNION, NJ) -- Two-time Tony Award winner Brian Stokes Mitchell, who has starred on Broadway in Kiss Me Kate, Man of La Mancha, King Hedley II and Shuffle Along, will close out the 2017/18 season at Kean Stage with two shows on Saturday, April 28.
Known for his deep baritone and charismatic stage presence, Mitchell was first nominated for the Tony Award in 1998 for his performance in Ragtime, the powerful story of ethnic and racial relations in America at the beginning of the 20th Century. Although he did not win, Mitchell put it into perspective shortly afterward, when he read a news story about three men in Texas who were convicted for chaining a black man to a truck and dragging him to his death.
"At that moment I went, 'Oh, this is why we are here,’” he said. “This is much more important than a Tony Award or any of that kind of stuff. That's what the show was about."
Two years later, Mitchell won the Tony Award for his starring role in Kiss Me Kate.
As revered as he is for his talent on the Great White Way, he is also widely respected for what he does off stage. Since 2004, Mitchell has served as president and later board chairman of the Actors Fund, which offers affordable housing, health care, emergency financial assistance, career counseling and senior care for those in the entertainment and performing arts industries. For this work, he was presented with the 2016 Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award for significant contributions to charitable and humanitarian causes.
Mitchell, a San Diego native, is the son of a Tuskegee airman, the celebrated squadron of black military pilots who fought in World War II. Because his father had a civilian engineering job in the Navy, Mitchell spent much of his childhood in Guam and the Philippines. He caught the acting bug when he played Conrad Birdie in his high school production of Bye Bye Birdie.
At age 17, he left home and immediately began working as an actor. For a time he was known as Brian Mitchell, but there were other actors with the same name, so in the late 1990s, he added “Stokes,” his mother’s maiden name.
Mitchell gained notoriety on television portraying Justin "Jackpot" Johnson on Trapper John, M.D. for seven years. Since then, he has appeared in dozens of television shows, including Mr. Robot, Glee, Frasier, and Fresh Prince of Bel Air. In addition to his stage work, Mitchell has worked in film and voiced numerous roles in children’s TV shows. He also regularly performs concerts, such as the one at Kean Stage on April 28.
Brian Stokes Mitchell will perform at 3:00pm and 7:30pm on Saturday, April 28 at Enlow Recital Hall, 215 North Ave., Hillside, N.J. Tickets are $45 to $65 and can be purchased at the Kean Stage Box Office in Wilkins Theatre at Kean University, 1000 Morris Avenue, Union, NJ, by phone at 908-737-7469 or online at www.keanstage.com.
