Apollo Theater

The legendary Apollo Theater, "where stars are born and legends made", is a source of pride for Harlem, and a symbol of American artistic achievement. Celebrating its 75 birthday in 2009, the Apollo is best known for its world-famous Amateur Night at the Apollo, which launched the careers of legendary artists like Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown, Michael Jackson, D'Angelo and Lauryn Hill. The Apollo remains the nation's most popular arena for emerging and established black and Latino performers.

Inspired!
The Apollo’s 75th Anniversary Season will culminate with Inspired!, a celebration featuring twelve extraordinary performances by Apollo legends, rising stars, and up-and-coming talent. Some of the biggest and brightest stars in entertainment will come together to celebrate the people and music that inspired them, and the Apollo legends whose influences helped build their careers.

Inspired! celebrates Apollo legends as well as the people to whom the torch has been passed, and the responsibility that comes with it. Top performers will celebrate their Apollo inspiration - and leave their own mark - for future generations to be “Inspired.”

Each performance will feature a star performer paying tribute to an Apollo artist who has been inspirational to them, and will also introduce new talent who will follow in the footsteps of the great performers who have come before them on the Apollo stage.

Jazz, Jump, and Jive: The Apollo Theater and American Entertainment

The Apollo is collaborating with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) to develop a major traveling exhibition designed to explore the theater’s impact on American popular culture. Drawing on wide-ranging materials including historic photographs, film, recordings, and artist interviews, the exhibition will trace the evolution of the Apollo from its first permutation in 1913 as a segregated burlesque theater to a premier entertainment venue with an iconic presence in Harlem and a magnet for audiences from around the world.

The exhibition will showcase items from public and privately held collections from across the country and rarely seen artifacts from the Apollo Theater Archive, home to nearly 3,000 historic objects. Curators are Dr. Tuliza Fleming of NMAAHC and Dr. Guthrie Ramsey, associate professor of Music History at the University of Pennsylvania.

The exhibition will debut in April in Washington, D.C. at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in the NMAAHC gallery. Tour stops are being planned for a number of cities including Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York.

Oral History Project

The Apollo will also continue its partnership with Columbia University’s Oral History Research Office to create an oral documentary of the world-famous theater. The project will feature audio and video interviews with artists and community leaders across generations who have helped distinguish the renowned theater, with participation from such notable figures as Smokey Robinson and Hal Jackson, among many others.

The project will include an oral history archive, an online and on-site exhibition based on the interviews, and an educational program for public school students. The project will be completed in 2010 and will open to the public at Columbia University beginning in January 2011.