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Stephen Semien
(? - living) U.S.A.

Stephen Semien

Performer, director, choreographer

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Stephen Semien began a career in entertainment as a pre-teen. While a Central Valley resident, he went daily to the local community theater to participate in any tech or performance slot available! When his family relocated to the Bay Area, he began formal training in theatre, voice and dance.

An apprenticeship with Joel Noble's dance company opened the door to a new world of skill and opportunity. At Noble's recommendation, Semien received a scholarship to the Dance Theater of Harlem when he was 17 years old. In the more than twenty years since, the never-ending quest to study, create and perform has been challenging as well as joyful!

Semien has studied theater and dance also in New York at Vinnette Carroll's Urban Arts theater, the Open Forum acting company, the Players workshop, the New York School of Ballet, and the May O'Donnell School of Modern Dance. He is a student of Lee Strasberg's "Method" with Coleen Nicholas of the famed Actors Studio, and has studied directing and writing with Clay Stevenson at Weslyan University in Connecticut.

He has performed in Don't Bother Me I Can't Cope, Your Arms Too Short to Box With God, Ain't Misbehavin, Sophisticated Ladies, and the film version of The Wiz. His show Children of the Night won the NAACP image award for best choreography.

In the final decade of the last century, Semien performed in 15 countries and collaborated with mentor Mabel Robinson as Performer/Assistant Director/Choreographer for the European production of a new musical The Sound of Motown!

In the Spring of 1997, Semien's staging of the new gospel Opera Jezebel was presented in Los Angeles to enthusiastic sold-out houses, and hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "Groundbreaking...first rate theater...succeeds in every way!"

Most recently Semien has performed in California regional theatre as James Thunder Early in Dreamgirls at the Willows Theatre, The Leading Player in Pippin opposite Nannette Fabray, Both Barrels in Los Angeles, and at Universal Studio's Hollywood in The Blues Brothers 2000 Live!

Two new projects written by Semien non in pre-production are Seven Black Pearls, a musical theater tribute to seven late African-American female superstars, and Elegy for a Lady, a musical theater study of the life of Billy Holliday and the development of Jazz music in America.

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Source: http://www.willowstheatre.org/Wiz 6.htm

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