From art, pop culture, politics and consumerism Black creatives are impacting the global consciousness like never before. Meet us [at] The Intersection for a weekend-long festival to explore the incredible range of Black innovation shaping our world. Curated by The Apollo’s Artist in Residence Ta-Nehisi Coates. Don’t miss this convening of artists, creatives, and thinkers at the center of Black creativity—where art and ideas come to life.
#ATTHEINTERSECTION
THE APOLLO’S FESTIVAL OF ARTS & IDEAS CURATED BY TA-NEHISI COATES
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Chelsea Miller
Sydnie L. Mosley Dances
Terence Nance
Dr. Fahamu Pecou
Diallo Riddle
Bashir Salahuddin
Ami Taf Ra
Halima Taha
Kamasi Washington
Ernestine White-Mifetu
Sage Adams
Luvvie Ajayi Jones
Sumayyah Ali
Felice Belle
Radha Blank
Bisa Butler
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Peter Collins
Bridgit Antoinette Evans Bassey Ikpi
Barry Jenkins
TALKS & PERFORMANCES by:
11:15AM - 7:00PM
Kamilah Forbes and Ta-Nehisi Coates
Opening Remarks
11:05AM - 11:15AM
Michelle Ebanks
Apollo Welcome
11:00AM - 11:05AM
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sunday october 8th
Sunday October 8th
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saturday october 7th
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Friday October 6th
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Schedule developing. Check back for more details.
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SUNDAY OCTOBER 8TH
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SATURDAY OCTOBER 7TH
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FRIDAY octOBER 6TH
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Michael R. Jackson Marlon James Bomani Jones
Dr. Ibram X. Kendi Jonathan McCrory Dominique Morisseau
Endea Owens
Millie Peartree Stephen Satterfield Salamishah Tillet Scheherazade Tillet Liesl Tommy
Kerry Washington Urban Word
Nite Bjuti
Dr. Yaba Blay
Ted Bunch
Ta-Nehisi Coates Jelani Cobb
Jordan E. Cooper Ghetto Gastro
Carla Hall Hawtplates ft. Justin Hicks & Kenita Miller
Nikole Hannah-Jones
Michael Harriot Stefon Harris
Jemele Hill
TALKS & PERFORMANCES by:
12:15pM - 7:00PM
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Opening Remarks
12:05PM - 12:15PM
Kamilah Forbes
Apollo Welcome
12:00pm - 12:05pm
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SUNDAY OCTOBER 8TH
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Saturday October 7th
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Friday October 6th
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schedule
View full schedule
This event is included in our Half Off for Harlem promotion. Harlem residents, employees, business owners, and students can save 50% on tickets to select performances throughout the season. Tickets subject to availability.
VIP Full Festival Pass
FESTIVAL DAY PASS
(SUNDAY ONLY)
FESTIVAL DAY PASS
(SATURDAY ONLY)
General Admission Full Festival Pass
TICKET INFORMATION
Learn more
This event is included in our Half Off for Harlem promotion. Harlem residents, employees, business owners, and students can save 50% on tickets to select performances throughout the season. Tickets subject to availability.
Half Off Harlem
Buy Tickets
$250
VIP Festival Passes include express entry into the theater on all festival days, preferred seating, and discounts on food and beverages.
VIP Full Festival Pass
Buy Tickets
$75
Day Festival Passes include admission to all daytime panel discussions, keynotes, and performances.
Festival Day Pass (sunday only)
$75
Buy Tickets
Day Festival Passes include admission to all daytime panel discussions, keynotes, and performances.
Festival Day Pass
(Saturday only)
Buy Tickets
$180
General Festival Passes include discounted admission to all daytime panel discussions, keynotes, and performances Friday – Sunday.
General Admission Full Festival Pass
TICKET INFORMATION
PARTICIPANTS
Hear from the leading minds shifting the landscape in music, theater, film, television, culinary arts, and more–and engage in deeper conversations with other cultural movers and enthusiasts [at] The Intersection.
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Ta-Nehisi Coates is an award-winning author and journalist. He is the author of the bestselling books The Beautiful Struggle, We Were Eight Years in Power, The Water Dancer, and Between the World and Me, which won the National Book Award in 2015. He was a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship the same year.
As a journalist with a career spanning over two decades, he’s written for numerous publications including The Washington City Paper, The Village Voice, The New Yorker and The New York Times. During his time reporting for The Atlantic between 2008-2018, he penned numerous articles and essays, including the National Magazine Award-winning 2012 essay Fear of a Black President and the influential June 2014 essay The Case For Reparations.
Ta-Nehisi also enjoyed a successful run writing Marvel’s Black Panther (2016-2021) and Captain America (2018-2021) comics series.
In September 2022 he joined Howard University’s faculty as a writer-in-residence and the Sterling Brown Chair in the Department of English.
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Sage Adams (They/She) is a Brooklyn based artist. Adams got their start on the website Tumblr as a young black person discussing politics, art, and one direction. From that initial interest in the art Adams would go on to visually direct SZA’s CTRL, release a sold-out sneaker and merchandise, and become one of the youngest signed creative directors at Original Creative Agency. Adams is a passionate learner, a staunch advocate for black mental health, and absolutely determined to make sure the next generation has access to art and its joys.
SAGE ADams
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Ted Bunch is an author, educator, activist, and lecturer working to advance gender and racial justice and create a more equitable society. As the chief development officer for A Call to Men™, Ted is internationally recognized for his efforts to prevent violence against women while promoting a healthy, respectful manhood. He is a leading voice on issues of manhood, male socialization and its intersection with violence, promoting healthy manhood/masculinity, preventing violence against all women and girls, diversity, equity and inclusion, and promoting gender and racial equity. Ted is the co-author of The Book of Dares, 100 inspiring, creative, fun challenges for boys based on the work of A Call to Men. The Book of Dares has been called “a direct answer to parents' cries for building healthy masculinity, respect, and emotional literacy in their sons.” Ted is an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
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Bisa Butler was born in Orange, New Jersey, the daughter of a college president and a French teacher and the youngest of four siblings.
Formally trained, Butler graduated Cum Laude from Howard University with a Bachelor’s in Fine Art degree. At Howard Butler was able to refine her natural talents under the tutelage of lecturers such as Jeff Donaldson, Al Smith Jr and Skunder Boghossian. She began to experiment with fabric as a medium and became interested in collage techniques.
Butler then went on to earn a Master’s in Art from Montclair State University in 2005.
While in the process of obtaining her Master’s degree, Butler took a Fiber Arts class where she had an artistic epiphany and she finally realized how to express her art through cloth.
Butler was a high school art teacher for 10 years in the Newark Public Schools and three years at Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey.
Most recently in 2023, Butler had a solo exhibition at the famed Jeffrey Deitch Gallery. She was awarded a Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship in 2022. Butler’s work was the focus of a solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, the second stop of a traveling exhibit which began at the Katonah Museum of Art. Many institutions and museums have acquired Butler’s work including: The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and The Los Angeles County Museum of Art among others.
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Jelani Cobb joined the Columbia Journalism School faculty in 2016 and became Dean in 2022. He has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2015. He received a Peabody Award for his 2020 PBS Frontline film Whose Vote Counts? and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary in 2018. He has also been a political analyst for MSNBC since 2019.
He is the author of The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress and To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic. He is the editor or co-editor of several volumes including The Matter of Black Lives, a collection of The New Yorker’s writings on race and The Essential Kerner Commission Report. He is producer or co-producer on a number of documentaries including Lincoln’s Dilemma, Obama: A More Perfect Union and Policing the Police.
Dr. Cobb was educated at Jamaica High School in Queens, NY, Howard University, where he earned a B.A. in English, and Rutgers University, where he completed his MA and doctorate in American History in 2003. He is also a recipient of fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation and the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
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Jordan E. Cooper is an Award-winning playwright, producer, director, performer, and the youngest Black American playwright in the history of Broadway, as well as the youngest Black showrunner in television history.
His Obie Award-winning play, AIN’T NO MO’ received six TONY Award nominations including “Best New Play” and “Best Featured Actor in a Play” for Jordan’s role as the hilarious and bossy flight attendant “Peaches.” Directed by Stevie Walker-Webb and produced by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Lee Daniels, press called AIN’T NO MO’ “fearlessly provocative,” “jubilantly disruptive,” and the “Best New Play on Broadway This Year,” citing Jordan as “Broadway’s Groundbreaking New Voice.”
Jordan co-created, executive produces and directs the Emmy-nominated The Ms. Pat Show, which is hailed by critics as "one of the most radical sitcoms of the modern era.” Jordan was also featured on the final season of FX’s groundbreaking series Pose as “MC Tyrone” and has his own production company, Cookout Entertainment.
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Bridgit Antoinette Evans is an award-winning artist and thought leader in the narrative change field, innovating the use of pop culture strategies to advance social justice. In 2008, Bridgit founded Fuel | We Power Change, a narrative strategy firm through which she designed long-term culture change strategies in partnership with many of the nation’s leading movement organizations, including the Save Darfur Coalition, Girls Are Not For Sale Campaign, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Caring Across Generations, and the ACLU. In recognition of her pathbreaking work, Bridgit was named a Nathan Cummings Foundation Fellowship in 2015, where she piloted “Culture Changes Us,” an immersive learning series that accelerated a cohort of social justice leaders’ understanding and use of culture change strategy. For Ford Foundation and Unbound Philanthropy, she led multi-year narrative research and strategy projects that unearthed breakthrough storytelling strategies for the gender and immigrant justice movements.
Bridgit travels globally as a speaker and advisor; and is Co-Host and Executive Producer of the Wonderland podcast. In 2017, Bridgit was appointed CEO of the Pop Culture Collaborative, a philanthropic fund that has already mobilized more than $50 million to resource a BIPOC-led field of entertainment storytellers, movement organizers, and narrative strategists working together to engage the majority of Americans in a vision of our just and pluralist future, while also building the narrative power to turn the tide of rising authoritarianism.
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Nikole Hannah-Jones is the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the 1619 Project and a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine. The book version of The 1619 Project as well as the 1619 Project children's book, Born on the Water, were instant #1 New York Times bestsellers. Her 1619 Project is now a six-part docuseries on Hulu. Hannah-Jones has spent her career investigating racial inequality and injustice, and her reporting has earned her the MacArthur Fellowship, known as the Genius grant, a Peabody Award, two George Polk Awards and the National Magazine Award three times. She also serves as the Knight Chair of Race and Journalism at Howard University, where she founded the Center for Journalism & Democracy. Hannah-Jones is also the co-founder of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, which seeks to increase the number of investigative reporters and editors of color, and in 2022 she opened the 1619 Freedom School, a free, afterschool literacy program in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa. Hannah-Jones holds a Master of Arts in Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned her Bachelor of Arts in History and African-American studies from the University of Notre Dame.
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Ghetto Gastro is the Bronx-born culinary collective from Jon Gray, Pierre Serrao, and Lester Walker. As a group they have notably defined their own lane, merging food, fashion, music, art, and design. Ghetto Gastro celebrates The Bronx as a driver of global culture and uses food as a weapon to make an impact in their community, while challenging the conventional narrative surrounding food, culture, and identity through an innovative approach to cooking and storytelling. They’re the minds behind the eponymous food line, Ghetto Gastro, available at Target stores nationwide and co-authors of the critically acclaimed book, BLACK POWER KITCHEN.
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Michael Harriot is the author of BLACK AF HISTORY: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America, the host of the podcast Drapetomaniax: Unshackled History, and is a columnist at theGrio.com where he covers the intersection of race, politics, and culture. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, The Atlantic, NBC, BET, and on his mother’s refrigerator. He is a political commentator on MSNBC and CNN and has been honored by the National Association of Black Journalists for commentary, digital commentary, and TV news writing. His college course “Race: An Economic Construct” was adapted by university economics departments across the country as a model for teaching the combination of history, economics, politics, and class structures. You can visit Michael at: https://www.michaelharriot.com/
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Heralded as “one of the most important artists in jazz” by The Los Angeles Times, vibraphonist, composer and band leader, Stefon Harris performs with passionate artistry, an energetic stage presence and astonishing virtuosity. Recognized as “the real deal” at a young age, Harris performed with Joe Henderson, Wynton Marsalis, Buster Williams, Kenny Barron, Cassandra Wilson and many other legends – and made his recording debut as a leader on Blue Note Records in 1998, when he was only 25. Having secured his place amongst the grand lineage of jazz vibraphonists, Harris and his exceptional band, Blackout, defies traditional jazz definitions. Together, they embrace sleek, slinky soul, funk, R&B and hip-hop – like Stevie Wonder rubbing elbows with George Gershwin.
Lauded by both his peers and jazz critics alike, Harris has amassed an impressive collection of accolades including four Grammy-nominations. He has performed worldwide, teaches at New York University and is Artistic Director of Jazz Education at New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC). Harris is committed to exploring the rich potential of jazz education and blazing new trails on the vibraphone.
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Emmy Award winning journalist, Jemele Hill is the Co-founder of Lodge Freeway Media and a contributing writer for The Atlantic.
In April of 2019, Hill debuted a new podcast on Spotify, called Jemele Hill is Unbothered. Unbothered explores the news of the day and the intersectionality between the worlds of sports, politics, music, identity and culture. Unbothered is an honest, thought-provoking, always-entertaining analysis of American life, discussed in real-time as it unfolds. Previous guests included Senator Kamala Harris, Ava DuVernay, Common, Ice Cube, Spike Lee and Soledad O’Brien.
On April 15, 2020, Hill along with Van Lathan launched the podcast, The Wire: Way Down in the Hole. The podcast will break down every episode on the HBO classic series. The podcast recaps the show, critical foreshadowing highlights signature moments and hands out “signature” awards.
Prior to joining the Undefeated, Hill co-anchored the 6 p.m. SportsCenter with Michael Smith, which debuted in February 2017 as a more personality-driven approach to the traditional SportsCenter.
Hill originally joined ESPN in 2006 as a national columnist for ESPN.com. Her profile gradually rose as she began to make appearances on television, including SportsCenter, First Take, Around the Horn, The Sports Reporters and Outside the Lines. She also spent a season as a sideline reporter for ESPN college football games. Her foray into daily television began in 2013, when she and Smith began co-hosting the daily, sports discussion show, His & Hers, which sprang from their popular podcast of the same name.
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Michael R. Jackson is one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people of 2022. His Pulitzer Prize and New York Drama Critics Circle winning A Strange Loop (which had its 2019 world premiere at Playwrights Horizons in association with Page 73 Productions) received 11 Tony nominations in 2022, and was called "a full-on laparoscopy of the heart, soul, and loins" as well as a "gutsy, jubilantly anguished musical with infectious melodies" by Ben Brantley for The New York Times. In The New Yorker, Vinson Cunningham wrote, "To watch this show is to enter, by some urgent, bawdy magic, an ecstatic and infinitely more colorful version of the famous surreal lithograph by M. C. Escher: the hand that lifts from the page, becoming almost real, then draws another hand, which returns the favor." In addition to A Strange Loop, he also wrote the book, music and lyrics for White Girl in Danger. Awards and associations include: a New Professional Theatre Festival Award, a Jonathan Larson Grant, a Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, an ASCAP Foundation Harold Adamson Award, a Whiting Award, the Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting, an Outer Critics Circle Award, a Drama Desk Award, an Obie Award, an Antonyo Award, a Fred Ebb Award, a Windham-Campbell Prize, a Dramatist Guild Fellowship and he is an alum of Page 73’s Interstate 73 Writers Group.
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Dr. Yaba Blay is a dark-skinned, kinky-haired, first-generation American-born-Ghanaian who identifies as Black with a capital B. She is a scholar-activist, freedom writer, and cultural consultant whose scholarship, work and practice centers on the lived experiences of Black women and girls, with a particular interest in body, identity, and beauty politics. dr. Blay’s commentary is featured in “A Changing America: 1968 and Beyond,” a permanent installation exhibited in the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC); and she is the author of the award-winning book, One Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race.
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Marlon James won the 2015 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for A Brief History of Seven Killings, making him the first Jamaican author to take home the U.K.’s most prestigious literary award. In the work, James combines masterful storytelling with brilliant skill at characterization and an eye for detail to forge a bold novel of dazzling ambition and scope. He explores Jamaican history through the perspectives of multiple narrators and genres: the political thriller, the oral biography, and the classic whodunit confront the untold history of Jamaica in the 1970’s, with excursions to the assassination attempt on reggae musician Bob Marley, as well as the country’s own clandestine battles during the cold war. James cites influences as diverse as Greek tragedy, William Faulkner, the LA crime novelist James Ellroy, Shakespeare, Batman and the X-Men. Writing for the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani said of A Brief History of Seven Killings, “It’s epic in every sense of that word: sweeping, mythic, over-the-top, colossal and dizzyingly complex. It’s also raw, dense, violent, scalding, darkly comic, exhilarating and exhausting—a testament to Mr. James’s vaulting ambition and prodigious talent.”
Marlon James’ first novel, John Crow’s Devil, tells the story of a biblical struggle in a remote Jamaican village in the 1950s. Though rejected 78 times before being accepted for publication, John Crow’s Devil went on to become a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize, as well as a New York Times Editor’s Choice.
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Bomani Jones is the host of the podcast The Right Time with Bomani Jones. As CEO of Old Soul Productions, He also hosts The Evening Jones, an audience driven podcast discussing a range of pop culture topics. He previously hosted Game Theory with Bomani Jones on HBO, where he tackles sports and their intersections with the world, and contributed to Back on the Record with Bob Costas.
Jones was the former co-host of the ESPN sports television programs Highly Questionable and High Noon, and was a panelist on the sports roundtable discussion show Around the Horn. He was an executive producer of Rand University, a film about former NFL wide receiver Randy Moss and an episode of ESPN’s acclaimed documentary series 30 for 30. He also worked on several documentaries.
For over 20 years, Bomani has written on sports, music, culture and politics for a variety of online and print publications, including Vanity Fair and GQ. He is a former contributor for SBNation.com, and the former host of The Morning Jones on The Score on Sirius/XM Satellite Radio.
Bomani graduated from Clark Atlanta University in 2001 with a bachelor’s degree in economics, and got his master’s degree in politics, economics, and business from Claremont Graduate University, as well as a master’s degree in economics from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He served as an adjunct professor at Elon University and Duke University.
Bomani currently resides in New York City.
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Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University and the founding director of the BU Center for Antiracist Research. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a CBS News racial justice contributor. He is the host of the new action podcast Be Antiracist. Dr. Kendi is the author of many highly acclaimed books including Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, making him the youngest-ever winner of that award. He has also produced five straight #1 New York Times bestsellers, including How to Be an Antiracist, Antiracist Baby, and Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, co-authored by Jason Reynolds. In 2020, Time magazine named Dr. Kendi one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He was awarded a 2021 MacArthur Fellowship, popularly known as the Genius Grant.
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A Columbia University graduate and Brooklyn native, Chelsea Miller is one of the leading voices in digital organizing. After working in the Obama White House in 2016, Chelsea would later become a global voice in activism. Chelsea is the Co-Founder of Freedom March NYC, one of the largest youth-led civil rights organizations in the country. Organizing movements in person and online, Chelsea is globally recognized for her ability to use social media to reach various audiences and build community. With a digital reach of over 1.5 million through partnerships, ambassadorships, and digital campaigns, Chelsea has leveraged her knowledge to work with brands such as Versace, Nike, Puma, Toms, Facebook, and the WNBA.
As a public speaker, Chelsea has addressed thousands of people in speaking engagements that include Madison Square Garden, Yale University, and the March on Washington. Her work has been featured in Forbes, Rolling Stone, Vogue, CNN, Financial Times, and more. In 2021, Chelsea was honored as the Voice of Justice on the Oprah Winfrey Network by Vital Voices and NowThisNEXT. She was also named as one of 12 recipients to receive the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian award. In 2022, Chelsea was named as one of the newest commentators for NowThis, the #1 most watched news brand globally on social.
Chelsea has lent her voice to several television programs helping to tell the stories of movements and mobilization in the digital age. Most recently, Chelsea was featured in the PBS docuseries, Making Black America and ABC's Soul of A Nation (Hip Hop at 50) now on Hulu.
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Terence Nance is an Artist, Musician, and Filmmaker born in Dallas, Texas in what was then referred to as the State-Thomas community. Nance wrote, directed, scored, and starred in his first feature film, An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and was released theatrically in 2013, was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2014, and debuted his Peabody award-winning television series Random Acts of Flyness on HBO in the summer of 2018. In the fall of 2018, it was announced that Nance was tapped to write, produce and direct Space Jam: A New Legacy, starring Lebron James, and in 2020 Terence released his first EP, THINGS I NEVER HAD under the name Terence Etc. In 2020 he also partnered with filmmakers Jenn Nkiru, Bradford Young, Nanette Nelms and Mishka Brown to form The Ummah Chroma Creative Partners – a directors collective and production company. This team released KILLING IN THY NAME in collaboration with Rage Against The Machine in January of 2021. In 2022, Terence released both Random Acts of Flyness Program II as well as his debut album, VORTEX. In 2023, Terence's first solo exhibition, “Swarm,” opened at the ICA Philadelphia.
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Dominique Morisseau is the author of The Detroit Project (A 3-Play Cycle): Skeleton Crew (Atlantic Theater Company/Broadway), Paradise Blue (Signature Theatre), and Detroit ’67 (Public Theater, Classical Theatre of Harlem and NBT). Additional plays include: Confederates (Signature Theatre), Pipeline (Lincoln Center Theatre), Sunset Baby (LAByrinth Theatre), Blood at the Root (National Black Theatre), and Follow Me To Nellie’s (Premiere Stages). Her Broadway production of Skeleton Crew (Manhattan Theatre Club) is TONY nominated for best play and she is also the TONY nominated book writer on the Broadway musical Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations (Imperial Theatre). TV/Film projects: She has served as Co-Producer on the Showtime series Shameless. She’s currently developing projects with Netflix and Maceo-Lyn (Kamilah Forbes, Ta-Nehisi Coates), and wrote the film adaptation of the documentary STEP for Fox Searchlight. Awards include: OBIE Award (2), and the Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellowship, named one of Variety’s Women of Impact for 2017-18 and a recipient of the 2018 MacArthur Genius Grant.
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Diallo Riddle is a versatile talent in the entertainment industry, known for his work as a director, writer, actor, showrunner, producer, and not to mention DJ. Alongside his creative partner Bashir Salahuddin, Riddle has launched numerous critically acclaimed projects through their production company, J30 Studios. Their Emmy-winning variety comedy series Sherman's Showcase, executive produced by John Legend, returned for its highly anticipated second season in 2022, featuring celebrity appearances and earning widespread praise. Riddle holds the titles of co-creator, executive producer, and star on the series. Additionally, Riddle and Salahuddin created, wrote, and starred in the HBO Max series South Side, offering an authentic portrayal of life on Chicago's south side. The show has received critical acclaim and achieved a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Riddle's directing work on South Side earned him an NAACP Image Award in 2022. Riddle and Salahuddin also have a multi-year deal with Warner Bros TV, and it was announced the duo will serve as showrunners, executive producers, and writers on Marlon Wayans' comedy series Book of Marlon set up at Starz. Riddle got his start in television writing for shows like Chocolate News and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and he has acted in popular series such as Silicon Valley and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Outside of his entertainment career, Riddle is involved in charitable work, supporting The Children's Institute. He resides in the Los Angeles area with his wife, three children, and their pet sheepadoodle.
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Emmy-nominated actor, director, writer and producer Bashir Salahuddin was born and raised on the south side of Chicago as one of six children. He is a recognized alumni of Harvard University where he was a member of the famed HASTY PUDDING THEATRICALS.
Bashir co-created the critically acclaimed series South Side on HBO MAX for which he won the NAACP Image Award for best director, and also created and starred in the sketch-variety series Sherman’s Showcase for which he was nominated for a Critics Choice award for Best Lead Actor in a series. He and writing partner Diallo Riddle started their careers as staff writer on NBC's Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, where they created such notable pieces as "Slow Jam the News with Barack Obama" and "The History of Hip-Hop with Justin Timberlake,” along with receiving an Emmy nomination for best writing.
Among his talents, Bashir has greatly distinguished himself as an actor, starring in several big-budget features, including Top Gun: Maverick opposite Tom Cruise and Cyrano opposite Peter Dinklage. He shared a SAG Award nomination for best ensemble for his work on the Netflix series Glow and guest starred in many other popular series such as Curb Your Enthusiasm and Blackish.
Having had great success as an actor, writer and director Bashir is eager to utilize his outstanding entertainment education for his new venture: a boutique streaming service where he and his team will select, develop and broadcast elite, curated tv series.
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Since 2007, Stephen Satterfield has devoted his career to redefining food and beverage as a means to organize, activate and educate. He saw the need for more inclusive storytelling and a media company dedicated to food origins and culture from around the world.
Prior to his career in media, Stephen Satterfield was a sommelier and social entrepreneur promoting wine as a catalyst for socioeconomic development for Black wine workers in South Africa. He is "one of the country’s most respected food journalists" (Eater), and host of the acclaimed Netflix docuseries, High on the Hog. The NAACP Peabody Award-winning project is now entering its highly anticipated second season.
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Salamishah Tillet won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for criticism for her work at The New York Times Magazine for columns examining race, genre, and Black perspectives as the arts and entertainment world responded to the Black Lives Matter moment with new works. She is also the author of In Search of The Color Purple: The Story of an American Masterpiece, and currently working on a book on the civil rights icon, Nina Simone. She is currently the Henry Rutgers Professor of Africana Studies and the Director of Express Newark at Rutgers University–Newark. In 2003, she and her sister Scheherazade Tillet founded the arts organization A Long Walk Home.
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Named after the famous feminist storyteller of the Arabian Nights, Scheherazade Tillet is a Trinidadian and African American photographer, art therapist, and social justice organizer. Tillet earned a Masters of Art Therapy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a B.A. from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She studied at Rutgers University’s Mason School of Fine Arts under the tutelage of veteran photojournalist Steve Hart. Her work has been featured in Gagosian Journal, Marie Claire, Teen Vogue, The Chicago Tribune, and MSNBC. In 2003, she co-founded A Long Walk Home (ALWH), a Chicago-based national nonprofit that uses art to empower young people to end violence against girls and women. She is also the Artistic Director of the award-winning multimedia performance, “Story of a Rape Survivor (SOARS)” and the creator of the Girl/Friends Leadership Institute, a yearlong artist-activist program for girls and young women of color.
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Liesl Tommy is a Tony® nominated, award-winning international theater, TV, and film director.
She is known in the theater world for her development of exciting new works as well as her innovative interpretation of classics. She is the first Black woman ever nominated for a Tony Award® for Best Direction of a Play, which she earned for Eclipsed by Danai Gurira starring Lupita Nyong’o. Liesl has directed over 50 productions throughout the world, including the first stage adaptation of Frozen as a multimedia extravaganza for Disneyland and her production of Les Miserables for Dallas Theater Centre, both of which she shifted casting to center people of color. Tommy has also enjoyed a successful career directing episodes of television including, Queen Sugar, Insecure, The Walking Dead, and Mrs. Fletcher. She recently directed the feature film Respect, based on the life of music icon Aretha Franklin, starring Jennifer Hudson as the Queen of Soul with Forest Whitaker, Audra McDonald, and Mary J. Blige.
Liesl’s childhood in Apartheid-era South Africa has deeply influenced her passion for stories about people fiercely pursuing personal and cultural freedom. Her aesthetic in all mediums is known for its rigorous writing, muscular actor driven storytelling, with music and movement as the driving pulse.
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Kamasi Washington is a multi-instrumentalist, producer and composer born and raised in Los Angeles. His three bodies of work to date—The Epic; Harmony of Difference, an EP originally commissioned for the 2017 Whitney Biennial; and Heaven and Earth, are among the most acclaimed of the past decade. Washington has released two films: As Told To G/D Thyself, a short film companion to Heaven and Earth which debuted at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival; and the concert film Kamasi Washington Live at The Apollo Theater in partnership with Amazon Music. In 2020, Washington scored Becoming—Netflix's documentary profiling First Lady Michelle Obama—and was nominated for Grammy and Emmy awards for his contributions. Washington has toured the world over, and collaborated and shared stages with Kendrick Lamar, Florence + the Machine, Herbie Hancock and many more.
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10. How do I find out accessibility information?
9. Is photography permitted inside of the theater?
8. Do I need to print my ticket?
7. Can I get a refund on my tickets?
6. What other artists will be participating?
4. Are seats assigned or general admission?
3. What is the difference between the VIP and the General Admission Festival Pass?
[at] The Intersection will take place throughout The Apollo’s Historic Theater located at 253 West 125th Street (between Adam Clayton Powell & Frederick Douglass Blvds).
A
Q
10. How do I find out accessibility information?
9. Is photography permitted inside of the theater?
8. Do I need to print my ticket?
7. Can I get a refund on my tickets?
6. What other artists will be participating?
4. Are seats assigned or general admission?
3. What is the difference between the VIP and the General Admission Festival Pass?
Full Festival passes will include entry into all panel discussions, daytime performances, screenings, and conversations Friday, October 6 - Sunday, October 8.
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Q
10. How do I find out accessibility information?
9. Is photography permitted inside of the theater?
8. Do I need to print my ticket?
7. Can I get a refund on my tickets?
6. What other artists will be participating?
4. Are seats assigned or general admission?
VIP Full Festival passes include express entry into the festival, preferred seating, a souvenir, as well as discounts on concessions throughout the festival.
2. What is included in the Festival Passes?
A
Q
10. How do I find out accessibility information?
9. Is photography permitted inside of the theater?
8. Do I need to print my ticket?
7. Can I get a refund on my tickets?
6. What other artists will be participating?
VIP Tickets and VIP Festival Passes will have designated seating areas.
All other tickets are general admission.
3. What is the difference between the VIP and the General Admission Festival Pass?
2. What is included in the Festival Passes?
A
Q
10. How do I find out accessibility information?
9. Is photography permitted inside of the theater?
8. Do I need to print my ticket?
7. Can I get a refund on my tickets?
6. What other artists will be participating?
A limited number of Half off for Harlem tickets will be available for general admission Festival Passes while supplies last. Live, work or study in Harlem? Register here for more information.
Contact The Apollo’s box office at boxoffice.info@apollotheater.org for details.
3. What is the difference between the VIP and the General Admission Festival Pass?
2. What is included in the Festival Passes?
A
Q
10. How do I find out accessibility information?
9. Is photography permitted inside of the theater?
8. Do I need to print my ticket?
7. Can I get a refund on my tickets?
The lineup is subject to change. Additional artists and panelists will be added to the festival lineup in the coming weeks. Sign up for the Apollo’s ALIST to stay up-to-date on festival news.
5. Are there discounts available?
3. What is the difference between the VIP and the General Admission Festival Pass?
2. What is included in the Festival Passes?
A
Q
Q
10. How do I find out accessibility information?
9. Is photography permitted inside of the theater?
8. Do I need to print my ticket?
We do not offer refunds or exchanges. If you are unable to use your ticket and you would like to transfer it to someone else, you can do so by following the instructions here in Ticketmaster.
6. What other artists will be participating?
5. Are there discounts available?
3. What is the difference between the VIP and the General Admission Festival Pass?
2. What is included in the Festival Passes?
A
Q
10. How do I find out accessibility information?
9. Is photography permitted inside of the theater?
No. You will receive an electronic ticket delivered to the email address assigned to your Ticketmaster account. When you arrive, have your e-ticket ready to be scanned at check-in.
7. Can I get a refund on my tickets?
6. What other artists will be participating?
5. Are there discounts available?
3. What is the difference between the VIP and the General Admission Festival Pass?
2. What is included in the Festival Passes?
A
Q
10. How do I find out accessibility information?
Personal photography is permitted in the theaters. Professional photography is prohibited. For press or media inquires, please email press@apollotheater.org at least 72 hours in advance. Outside of brief social media capture, events may not be video-recorded.
8. Do I need to print my ticket?
7. Can I get a refund on my tickets?
6. What other artists will be participating?
5. Are there discounts available?
3. What is the difference between the VIP and the General Admission Festival Pass?
2. What is included in the Festival Passes?
A
Q
Please contact the Apollo Box office at access@apollotheater.org or
(212) 531-5305 if any special assistance is required for your visit. Learn more about our accessibility options here.
9. Is photography permitted inside the theater?
8. Do I need to print my ticket?
7. Can I get a refund on my tickets?
6. What other artists will be participating?
5. Are there discounts available?
3. What is the difference between the VIP and the General Admission Festival Pass?
2. What is included in the Festival Passes?
A
Q
VIP check-in will be stationed near the east side of the box office near Game Stop. Look for the red carpet check-in area and have your mobile ticket ready.
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Q
15. Can I purchase tickets in person? What are the box office hours?
14. Is food or drink permitted inside of the festival?
13. I have a festival pass, will I be able to enter and exit the theater throughout the weekend?
12. What is the recommended age range & can I bring my child to [at] The Intersection?
Q&A 11-15
Q&A 1-10
15. Can I purchase tickets in person? What are the box office hours?
14. Is food or drink permitted inside of the festival?
13. I have a festival pass, will I be able to enter and exit the theater throughout the weekend?
11. I have a VIP Festival Pass - where do I check-in for express entry?
All Festival attendees must have a ticket and be age 12 or older.
A
Q
Q&A 11-15
Q&A 1-10
15. Can I purchase tickets in person? What are the box office hours?
14. Is food or drink permitted inside of the festival?
12. What is the recommended age range & can I bring my child to [at] The Intersection?
11. I have a VIP Festival Pass - where do I check-in for express entry?
Yes. Upon your first arrival at the Festival, you will be given a wristband which will allow you to enter and exit the building throughout. If you are a Full Festival or VIP Festival Pass holder, you’ll use the same wristband through the weekend.
A
Q
Q&A 11-15
Q&A 1-10
15. Can I purchase tickets in person? What are the box office hours?
13. I have a festival pass, will I be able to enter and exit the theater throughout the weekend?
12. What is the recommended age range & can I bring my child to [at] The Intersection?
11. I have a VIP Festival Pass - where do I check-in for express entry?
Grab-and-go meals and beverages will be available for purchase at the festival. No outside food or beverages will be permitted inside of the theater.
A
Q
Q&A 11-15
Q&A 1-10
14. Is food or drink permitted inside of the festival?
13. I have a festival pass, will I be able to enter and exit the theater throughout the weekend?
12. What is the recommended age range & can I bring my child to [at] The Intersection?
11. I have a VIP Festival Pass - where do I check-in for express entry?
Single & Full Festival Passes can be purchased in person at The Apollo’s box office. Standard box office hours are weekdays from 10am - 6pm and Saturdays from 12pm - 5pm.
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Q
Q&A 11-15
Q&A 1-10
Website: https://bixiharlem.com/
Location: 2164 Frederick Douglass Blvd, New York, NY 10026
Show your ticket confirmation for all shows, on the day of, and receive a glass of house wine/beer/or soft drink with any food purchase.
bixi
Website: https://lidoharlem.com/
Location: 2168 Frederick Douglass Blvd, New York, NY 10026
Show your ticket confirmation for all shows, on the day of, and receive a glass of house wine/beer/or soft drink with any food purchase.
lido
Website: https://harlemshake.com/harlem-shake-124th-street/
Location: 100 W 124th St, New York, NY 10027
Mention APOLLO at the register for 10% off orders of $60
harlem shake
Website: https://thefoxharlem.com/
Location: 2224 Frederick Douglass Blvd, New York, NY 10026
Show your ticket confirmation for all shows, on the day of, and receive a glass of house wine/beer/or soft drink with any food purchase.
the fox
Website: https://bixiharlem.com/
Location: 2164 Frederick Douglass Blvd, New York, NY 10026
Show your ticket confirmation for all shows, on the day of, and receive a glass of house wine/beer/or soft drink with any food purchase.
bixi
Website: https://lidoharlem.com/
Location: 2168 Frederick Douglass Blvd, New York, NY 10026
Show your ticket confirmation for all shows, on the day of, and receive a glass of house wine/beer/or soft drink with any food purchase.
LIDO
Website: https://harlemshake.com/harlem-shake-124th-street/
Location: 100 W 124th St, New York, NY 10027
Mention APOLLO at the register for 10% off orders of $60
HARLEM SHAKE
Website: https://thefoxharlem.com/
Location: 2224 Frederick Douglass Blvd, New York, NY 10026
Show your ticket confirmation for all shows, on the day of, and receive a glass of house wine/beer/or soft drink with any food purchase.
The fox
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