Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts

Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts is a high school

High school

High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

specializing in teaching visual arts and performing arts

Performing arts

The performing arts are those forms art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object...

, located near Lincoln Center and the Juilliard School

Juilliard School

The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...

in the Lincoln Center district of Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

, on Amsterdam Avenue. The school is operated by the New York City Department of Education

New York City Department of Education

The New York City Department of Education is the branch of municipal government in New York City that manages the city's public school system. It is the largest school system in the United States, with over 1.1 million students taught in more than 1,700 separate schools...

.

Although it also offers academic diplomas, the school prepares public high school students for professional careers and/or conservatory study in dance, drama, the visual arts, vocal, instrumental music, and technical theatre.

Informally known as LaGuardia Arts, or LaGuardia High School, Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts is the only school among the nine specialized high schools in New York City that receives special funding from the New York State legislature through the Hecht Calandra Act.

The school has 2,519 students and 163 staff members, with a teacher-student ratio of 1:15.

History

The High School of Music & Art

The High School of Music & Art, informally known as "Music & Art", was a public alternative high school at 443-465 West 135th Street, New York, New York, USA that existed from 1936 through 1984, and then merged into the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing...

was founded by Fiorello H. LaGuardia

Fiorello H. LaGuardia

Fiorello Henry LaGuardia was Mayor of New York for three terms from 1934 to 1945 as a liberal Republican. Previously he was elected to Congress in 1916 and 1918, and again from 1922 through 1930. Irascible, energetic and charismatic, he craved publicity and is acclaimed as one of the three or...

in 1936. As the mayor of New York City he wanted to establish a public school in which students could hone their talents in music and art. In 1948, a similar school, the School of Performing Arts, was created to harness students’ talents in dance, music, and/or drama. The schools merged on paper in 1961 and were to be combined in one building. However, this took many years and it was not until 1984 that they moved to a new building in Lincoln Center. The Board of Education

Board of education

A board of education or a school board or school committee is the title of the board of directors or board of trustees of a school, local school district or higher administrative level....

honored Mayor LaGuardia by naming the new building after him. Prior to the building's completion in 1984, Music & Art (a/k/a "The Castle on the Hill") was located on Convent Avenue and 135th Street in what has since become part of City College (CCNY)'s South Campus; the building is home to A. Philip Randolph High School

A. Philip Randolph Campus High School

The A. Philip Randolph Campus High School is a public secondary school in New York City. It is located in Harlem, adjacent to the City College of New York. It occupies a landmark building formerly occupied by The High School of Music & Art. The school was established in 1979 as an educational...

. Performing Arts was located in midtown on 46th Street, both in Manhattan. Mayor La Guardia regarded Music & Art as the "most hopeful accomplishment" of his long administration as mayor.

The 1980 dramatic film Fame was based on student life at the School of Performing Arts prior to its merger into LaGuardia High School. It was so successful that a television series, Fame
Fame (1982 TV series)
Fame is an American television series originally produced between 1982 and 1987. The show was based on the 1980 motion picture of the same name. Using a mixture of drama and music, it followed the lives of the students and faculty at the New York City High School for the Performing Arts. Although...

, was launched in 1982, a Broadway show of Fame was produced in 2003–2004, and the original film was remade and released in 2009.

Alumni from LaGuardia and its two legacy schools, Music & Art and Performing Arts, are active in supporting the students and the school through scholarships and support for special programs, school events, and reunions held at the school and throughout the world. The school's alumni organization has a full-time executive director and offices at the school. It functions as an independent charitable organization organized under the laws of New York.

Curriculum

Students at LaGuardia take a full academic course load while participating in conservatory-style arts concentration. Each student majors in one studio, choosing from among Dance, Drama, Art, Vocal Music, Instrumental Music, and Technical Theatre.

Many graduates from LaGuardia continue their studies in universities or conservatories after graduation.

LaGuardia follows up to a 10 period day, including one lab per week. Periods are 45 minutes long with a 4 minute break between each period. Each student spends a minimum of three periods in studio classes (three for Music, Art and Tech majors, and four for Dance and Drama majors, whose studios fulfill physical education requirements), and usually five to six periods in English, Math, Science, History, Language, and/or Physical Education, with one period for lunch. By state law, students are required to complete four years of English and History classes, three years of math and science, one year of foreign language, and four years of gym. Students who do not meet their studio requirements at graduation leave without a studio-endorsed diploma.

LaGuardia has offered an honors track to students entering after 2006, known as the DaVinci Program. DaVinci Scholars take more difficult classes in math and science and participate in a supplementary after-school enrichment program. Students not in the program may still take individual honors classes. LaGuardia also offers Advanced Placement courses in English Language and Composition, English Literature and Composition, Spanish, French, Italian and Japanese languages, World History, United States History, Calculus AB, Calculus BC, Statistics, Chemistry, Biology, Environmental Science, Art History and Music Theory.

Notable alumni

The following people are alumni of LaGuardia High School and its two legacy schools, The High School of Music & Art, and the School of Performing Arts High School:
Composers

Martin Bresnick
Martin Bresnick
Martin Bresnick is a composer of contemporary classical music, film scores and experimental music.-Education and early career:Bresnick was born and raised in the Bronx, and is a graduate of New York City's specialized High School of Music and Art. He was educated at the University of Hartford ,...
Morton Feldman
Morton Feldman
Morton Feldman was an American composer, born in New York City.A major figure in 20th century music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers also including John Cage, Christian Wolff, and Earle Brown...
Charles Fox
Charles Fox (composer)
Charles Ira Fox is an American composer for film and television. His most heard compositions are probably the "love themes" , and the dramatic theme music to ABC's Wide World of Sports and the original Monday Night Football.....
Gerald Fried
Gerald Fried
Gerald Fried is an American musician, well known for his compositions in film and television.Born and raised in the Bronx, New York City, Fried attended Juilliard School of Music...
Joel Hirschhorn
Joel Hirschhorn
Joel Hirschhorn, , was an American songwriter. During a successful career, he won the Academy Award for Best Song on two occasions...
Michael Kamen
Michael Kamen
Michael Arnold Kamen was an American composer , orchestral arranger, orchestral conductor, song writer, and session musician.-Background:...
Edward Kleban
Edward Kleban
Edward “Ed” Kleban was an American musical theatre composer and lyricist.Kleban was born in the Bronx, New York in 1939 and graduated from New York's High School of Music & Art and Columbia University, where he attended with future playwright Terrance McNally. Kleban is best known as lyricist of...
Meyer Kupferman
Meyer Kupferman
Meyer Kupferman was a prolific American composer and clarinetist.-Life:Meyer Kupferman was born in New York City. A self taught composer, Kupferman first gained attention in the late 1940s when his early opera "In A Garden" was premiered at the Tanglewood and Edinburgh Festivals. From 1951 to 1993...
Ezra Laderman
Ezra Laderman
Ezra Laderman is an American composer of classical music.-Biography:His parents, Isidor and Leah, both emigrated to the United States from Poland. Though poor, the family had a piano. Ezra writes, "At four, I was improvising at the piano; at seven, I began to compose music, writing it down...
Paul Lansky
Paul Lansky
Paul Lansky is an American electronic-music or computer-music composer who has been producing works from the 1970s up to the present day .-Biography:...
Mitch Leigh
Mitch Leigh
Mitch Leigh is an American musical theatre composer and theatrical producer best known for the musical Man Of La Mancha.-Biography:Leigh was born in Brooklyn, New York) as Irwin Michnick...
Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson
Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson
Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson was an innovative American composer whose interests spanned the worlds of jazz, dance, pop, film, television, and classical music.Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson was Afro-American...
Stu Phillips
Jonathan Tunick
Jonathan Tunick
Jonathan Tunick is an American orchestrator, musical director, and composer, one of twelve people to have won all four major American show business awards: the Tony, Oscar, Emmy and Grammy. He has also worked with all of the other eleven people. His principal instrument is the clarinet...

Conductors

Leon Botstein
Leon Botstein
Leon Botstein is an American conductor and the President of Bard College . Botstein is the music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra and conductor laureate of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, where he served as music director and principal conductor from 2003-2010...
James Conlon
James Conlon
James Conlon is an American conductor and the current Music Director of the Los Angeles Opera.-Early years:Conlon grew up in a family of five children on Cherry Street in Douglaston, Queens, New York. His mother, Angeline L. Conlon, was a freelance writer. His father was an assistant to the New...
Eve Queler
Eve Queler
Eve Queler is an American conductor and the current Artistic Director of the Opera Orchestra of New York . She founded the OONY in 1971 after having worked on the staffs of the Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Opera....
Gerard Schwarz
Gerard Schwarz
Gerard Schwarz is an American conductor. He was music director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra from 1985 to 2011.In 2007 Schwarz was named music director of the Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina, having served as principal conductor since 2005...
David Zinman
David Zinman
David Zinman is an American conductor and violinist.After early violin studies at the Oberlin Conservatory, Zinman studied theory and composition at the University of Minnesota and took up conducting at Tanglewood...

Classical Instrumentalists

Ik-Hwan Bae
Ik-Hwan Bae
Ik-Hwan Bae, concert violinist, was born in Seoul, Korea and made his professional debut with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of 12. He attended New York City's prestigious Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts, graduating in 1976. While there, Bae also studied with Ivan...
David Braid
Stanley Drucker
Stanley Drucker
Stanley Drucker is an American clarinetist. Of Ukrainian ancestry, he began clarinet studies at age ten with Leon Russianoff, and remained his student for five years. He attended the High School of Music & Art...
Bernard Garfield
Bernard Garfield
Bernard Garfield is a well-known bassoonist, teacher, composer and pedagogue.He studied at New York University and received a master’s degree in composition from Columbia University in 1950. He received the ARCM diploma from the Royal College of Music in 1945.He received an honorary doctorate...
David Krakauer
David Krakauer
David Krakauer is an American clarinetist. He is a graduate of the High School of Music & Art, class of 1974. He is mostly known for his klezmer compositions. He became involved with klezmer music in the late 1980s while working as a classical musician, joining The Klezmatics...
Rhoda Pinsley Levin
Steven Lubin
Steven Lubin
Steven Lubin is an American pianist and musical scholar. He is best known for his performances on the fortepiano, the early version of the piano.-Studies:...
Murray Perahia
Murray Perahia
Murray Perahia KBE is an American concert pianist and conductor.-Early life:Murray Perahia was born in the Bronx borough of New York City to a family of Sephardi Jewish origin. According to the biography on his Mozart piano sonatas CD, his first language was Judaeo-Spanish or, Ladino. The family...
Joshua Rifkin
Joshua Rifkin
Joshua Rifkin is an American conductor, keyboard player, and musicologist. He is best known by the general public for having played a central role in the ragtime revival in the 1970s with the three albums he recorded of Scott Joplin's works for Nonesuch Records, and to classical musicians for his...
David Rubinstein
David Rubinstein
David Rubinstein is a pianist. He has given concerts featuring the works of American composers such as Charles Griffes and Aaron Copland at the American Landmark Festivals, as well as performing his own works...
Steve Stevens
Steve Stevens
Steve Stevens is an American guitarist and songwriter.He is best known for playing for other artists and less known for his critically acclaimed solo efforts , collaborations Steve Stevens (born as Steven Schneider on May 5, 1959, in Brooklyn, New York) is an American guitarist and songwriter.He...
Roland Vamos
Roland and Almita Vamos
Roland and Almita Vamos are a husband and wife who are among the leading violin and viola instructors in the world. Their pupils have become prominent soloists, members of world renowned chamber groups and orchestras, and laureates of prestigious international competitions...
Arthur Weisberg
Arthur Weisberg
Arthur Weisberg was an American bassoonist, conductor, composer and author.-Biography:Weisberg was born in New York City. He attended the Fiorello H...
Pinchas Zukerman
Pinchas Zukerman
Pinchas Zukerman is a world-renowned violinist, violist, and conductor. He is considered one of the greatest violinists of the 20th and 21st centuries, and his ongoing 45-year career has seen him perform with the world's best-known orchestras and record over 100 works...

Classical Singers

Reri Grist
Reri Grist
Reri Grist is an American coloratura soprano, one of the pioneer African-American singers to enjoy a major international career in opera.-Biography:...
Isabel Leonard
Isabel Leonard
Isabel Leonard is an American mezzo-soprano. She is of Argentinean ancestry on her mother's side.For five years, Leonard sang with the Manhattan School of Music Children’s Chorus. She also attended the Joffrey Ballet School. She is a graduate of the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music &...
Catherine Malfitano
Catherine Malfitano
Catherine Malfitano is an American operatic soprano. She is generally considered to be one of America's leading operatic sopranos...
Julia Migenes
Julia Migenes
Julia Migenes is an American mezzo-soprano working primarily in musical theatre repertoire. She was born on the Lower East Side of New York to a family of Greek and Irish-Puerto Rican descent...
Kimberly Camara

Jazz Musicians

Terry Burrus
Terry Burrus
Terrance Corley Burrus is an American keyboardist and composer.Born in Brooklyn, New York, he started touring as a teenager playing with jazz fusion violinist Michał Urbaniak, singer Jean Carne, while still in High school in New York...
Bobby Broom
Bobby Broom
Bobby Broom , birthname Robert Broom, Jr., is an American jazz guitarist, composer and educator born and raised in New York City. Broom performs and records with jazz saxophone legend Sonny Rollins as well as his Bobby Broom Trio and the Deep Blue Organ Trio...
Sterling Campbell
Sterling Campbell
Sterling Campbell in New York City, New York, is an American rock drummer who has worked with numerous high-profile acts. He rose to attention in 1986, touring with Cyndi Lauper on her her True Colors World Tour, in 1986, and in 1987, joined Duran Duran...
Bill Charlap
Bill Charlap
William Morrison Charlap is a jazz pianist born October 15, 1966 in New York City.Bill Charlap comes from a musical background and is a distant cousin to famed jazz pianist Dick Hyman. His mother, Sandy Stewart , is a singer who had a hit in 1962 with My Coloring Book, while his father was Broadway...
Ray Chew
Ray Chew
Ray Chew is an American musician who specializes in keyboards and contemporary and orchestral arranging.Chew was a member of the Saturday Night Live Band from 1980 to 1983...
Billy Cobham
Billy Cobham
William C. Cobham is a Panamanian American jazz drummer, composer and bandleader, who has called Switzerland home since the late 1970s....
Eddie Daniels
Eddie Daniels
Eddie Daniels is an American musician. Though he is best known as a jazz clarinet player, he has also played alto and tenor saxophones, as well as classical music on the clarinet....
Kenny Drew
Kenny Drew
Kenneth Sidney "Kenny" Drew was an American jazz pianist.-Biography:Born in New York City, New York, he first recorded with Howard McGhee in 1949, and over the next two years recorded with Buddy DeFranco, Coleman Hawkins, Milt Jackson, Charlie Parker, Buddy Rich, and Dinah Washington...
Béla Fleck
Béla Fleck
Béla Anton Leoš Fleck is an American banjo player. Widely acknowledged as one of the world's most innovative and technically proficient banjo players, he is best known for his work with the bands New Grass Revival and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.-Early life and career details:Fleck was born in...
Sharon Freeman
Sharon Freeman
Sharon Freeman is a jazz pianist and French hornist. She also writes musical arrangements.Freeman played French horn for the jazz opera Escalator over the Hill, Gil Evans's 1973 album Svengali, and in 1983 she worked on a piece of jazz Christmas music. Since 1982 she is a member of Charlie Haden's...
Eddie Gomez
Eddie Gomez
Edgar "Eddie" Gómez is a Puerto Rican jazz double bassist born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, perhaps most notable for his work done with the Bill Evans trio from 1966 to 1977.-Biography:...
Omar Hakim
Omar Hakim
Omar Hakim is an American jazz, jazz fusion and pop music drummer.Hakim credits jazz vibraphonist Mike Mainieri with giving him his first break in 1980; Hakim appeared in a video with Mainieri called The Jazz Life and began working with singer Carly Simon through Mainieri...
Chuck Israels
Chuck Israels
Charles H. "Chuck" Israels is a composer, arranger, and bassist who is best known for his work with the Bill Evans Trio. He has also worked with Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins, Stan Getz, Herbie Hancock, J. J. Johnson, John Coltrane and many others.-Biography:Chuck Israels was...
Steve Jordan
Steve Jordan (musician)
Steve Jordan is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, musical director and Grammy Award-winning artist, who has made a name for himself as a producer from the Bronx in New York City. A graduate of the Fiorello H...
Phyllis Litoff
Phyllis Litoff
Phyllis Weisbart Litoff was a singer, jazz impresario, and artistic director. For many years she was the co-owner of Sweet Basil Jazz Club in Greenwich Village and was one of the founders of the Greenwich Village Jazz Festival...
Marcus Miller
Marcus Miller
Marcus Miller is an American jazz composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist. Miller is best known as a bassist, working with trumpeter Miles Davis, singer Luther Vandross, and saxophonist David Sanborn, as well as maintaining a prolific solo career...
Charnett Moffett
Charnett Moffett
Charnett Moffett is an American jazz musician who plays piccolo bass, double bass and bass guitar.Moffett's given name was created as a combination of that of his father and that of Ornette Coleman...
Noel Pointer
Noel Pointer
Noel Pointer was an American jazz violinist and record producer.He was nominated for a Grammy award in 1981. Pointer's reputation as an outstanding jazz musician and literary advocate garnered him honorary citizenship in cities across the United States...
Shorty Rogers
Shorty Rogers
Milton “Shorty” Rogers , born Milton Rajonsky in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, was one of the principal creators of West Coast jazz. He played both the trumpet and flugelhorn, and was in demand for his skills as an arranger. Rogers worked first as a professional musician with Will Bradley and...
Jeremy Steig
Jeremy Steig
-Biography:Steig is the son of New Yorker cartoonist William Steig,At age 19 Steig was involved in a motorcycle accident which left him paralyzed on one side...
Dave Valentin
Dave Valentin
Dave Valentin is a jazz flutist.He learned latin percussion first when he was a teenager, and then switched to flute. Valentin's teacher, Hubert Laws, suggested that he not double on saxophone because of his attractive sound on the flute. He studied at the Bronx Community College...
Kenny Washington
Kenny Washington (musician)
Kenny Washington is a jazz drummer born in Staten Island, New York.He studied at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts...
Larry Willis
Larry Willis
Lawrence Elliott Willis is an American jazz pianist and composer. He has performed in a wide range of styles, including jazz fusion rock music, Bebop and Avant-Garde...

Dancers/Choreographers

Gregg Burge
Gregg Burge
-Career:Burge graduated from New York's prestigious Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts in 1975. His credits ranged from television's The Electric Company to the stage and film version of A Chorus Line , for which he served as assistant to choreographer Jeffrey Hornaday and...
Michael Callen
Michael Callen
Michael Callen was a singer, songwriter, composer, author, and AIDS activist. He was a significant architect of the response to the AIDS crisis in the United States....
Altovise Davis
Altovise Davis
Altovise Davis was an American entertainer, best known as Sammy Davis, Jr.'s third wife.Born in Charlotte, North Carolina as Altovise Joanne Gore, she was raised in Brooklyn, New York and worked during the 1960s as a chorus-line dancer in various musical shows both in London and on Broadway.Her...

(née Gore)
Christopher Chadman
Christopher Chadman
Christopher Chadman was an American dancer and choreographer who was nominated for Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards and was the winner of the Fred Astaire Award for his choreography for the 1992 revival of Guys and Dolls.Born in the Bronx, Chadman studied at the High School of...
Eliot Feld
Eliot Feld
Eliot Feld is an American modern ballet choreographer, performer and director.-Life and career:Feld was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Alice , a travel agent, and Benjamin Noah Feld, an attorney...
Annabelle Gamson
Annabelle Gamson
Annabelle Gamson is a renowned American dancer and choreographer. Although she has had a number of successes within the field of ballet, Gamson is particularly known for her work within the area of modern dance. As a dancer she drew particular acclaim for her interpretations of the works of...
Arthur Mitchell
Arthur Mitchell (dancer)
Arthur Mitchell is an African-American dancer and choreographer who created a training school and the first African-American classical ballet company, Dance Theatre of Harlem...
Michael Peters
Michael Peters
Michael Douglas Peters was an American choreographer.-Biography:Peters was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in New York City to an African American father and Jewish mother. His first major breakthrough came when he did choreography for Donna Summer's "Love to Love You Baby" in 1975...
Desmond Richardson
Desmond Richardson
Desmond Richardson is co-founder and co-artistic director of Complexions Contemporary Ballet. He has mastered a wide range of dance forms including classical, modern, and contemporary.- Life and career :...
Edward Villella
Edward Villella
Edward Villella is an American ballet dancer and choreographer, frequently cited as America's most celebrated male dancer at the time....

Media

David Ehrenstein
David Ehrenstein
David Ehrenstein is an American critic who focuses primarily on issues of homosexuality in cinema.-Life and career:Ehrenstein was born in New York City. His father was a secular Jew with Polish ancestors, and his mother was of African American and Irish descent. His mother raised him in her...
Max Frankel
Max Frankel
Max Frankel is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.Frankel came to the United States in 1940. He attended Columbia College and began part-time work for The New York Times in his sophomore year. He received his B.A. degree in 1952 and an M.A. in American government from Columbia in 1953.He joined...
Peter Frishauf
Peter Frishauf
Peter Frishauf, born in 1949, is best known as the founder of Medscape, and SCP Communications, Inc. Frishauf is listed in Richard Saul Wurman’s March, 2002 book, Who’s Really Who as one of the 1,000 most creative people in the U.S....
George Lois
George Lois
George Lois is a controversial American art director, designer, and author. Lois is best known for over 92 covers he designed for Esquire Magazine...
Bess Myerson
Bess Myerson
Bess Myerson became the first Jewish woman to win the Miss America pageant in 1945. She appeared on various television shows in the 1950s and 1960s...
Susan Stamberg
Susan Stamberg
Susan Stamberg is an American radio journalist who is currently a Special Correspondent for National Public Radio and guest host for Weekend Edition Saturday.Stamberg was born in Newark, New Jersey...
Carol Tang

Directors/Writers

Lou Berger
Lou Berger
Lou Berger is a former head writer for Sesame Street. Berger was one of two writers that helped launch Reading Rainbow in the early 1980s and he co-wrote, with Judy Freudberg, the primetime special The Street We Live On, which was nominated for an Emmy as Outstanding Children's Program...
Maurice Berger
Maurice Berger
Maurice Berger is an Americancultural historian, curator, and art critic.- Biography :Maurice Berger is a cultural historian, art critic, and curator. He is Research Professor and Chief Curator at the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, University of Maryland, Baltimore County. A student of...
Robert Brustein
Robert Brustein
Robert Sanford Brustein is an American theatrical critic, producer, playwright and educator. He founded both Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut and the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he remains a Creative Consultant, and has been the theatre critic for...
James Burrows
James Burrows
James Edward Burrows is an American television director who has been working in television since the 1970s.-Biography:...
Charles Busch
Charles Busch
Charles Louis Busch is an American actor, screenwriter, playwright and female impersonator, known for his appearances on stage in his own camp style plays and in film and television. He wrote The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, which was a success on Broadway.-Early life:Busch was born in 1954 and...
Reggie Rock Bythewood
Reggie Rock Bythewood
Reggie Rock Bythewood in The Bronx, New York City, New York, is a film director, writer, actor and producer. His credits include serving as the writer for Spike Lee's Get on the Bus, the writer/director for Biker Boyz starring Derek Luke and Laurence Fishburne, and the writer/director/producer for...
Cecil Castellucci
Cecil Castellucci
Cecil Castellucci, also known as Cecil Seaskull , is a young adult novelist, indie rocker, and director. She currently lives in Los Angeles, California...
Martin Charnin
Martin Charnin
Martin Charnin is an American lyricist, writer, and theatre director. Charnin's best-known work is as conceiver, director and lyricist of the hit musical Annie....
Graham Diamond
Graham Diamond
Graham Diamond is a fantasy and science fiction author.-Early life and education:Born in Manchester, England, after World War II, and his family moved to the United States when he was a young child. He was raised in New York City, on the Upper West Side, and graduated from the High School of...
Rosalyn Drexler
Rosalyn Drexler
Rosalyn Drexler is a Pop artist, novelist, Obie Award-winning playwright, and Emmy Award-winning screenwriter. She is represented by Pace Gallery.-Early life:...
Herb Gardner
Diana Gould
Diana Gould
Diana Gould is a screenwriter for television and a short story author.-Positions Held:Berrenger's*Producer & Writer Dynasty*Producer *Story Writer Family*Writer Knot's Landing...
Peter Hyams
Peter Hyams
Peter Hyams is an American screenwriter, director and cinematographer, probably best known for directing the 1984 science fiction adventure 2010 , Capricorn One, the comic book adaptation Timecop and the Arnold Schwarzenegger horror/action film End of Days.-Family:Hyams was born in New York...
Erica Jong
Erica Jong
Erica Jong is an American author and teacher best known for her fiction and poetry.-Career:A 1963 graduate of Barnard College, and with an M.A...
Michael Kahn
Michael Kahn (theatre director)
Michael Kahn is the Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., USA. He held the position of Richard Rodgers Director of the Drama Division of the Juilliard School from 1992 to 2006....
Jonathan Ned Katz
Jonathan Ned Katz
Jonathan Ned Katz is an American historian of human sexuality who has focused on same-sex attraction and changes in the social organization of sexuality over time...
James Howard Kunstler
James Howard Kunstler
James Howard Kunstler is an American author, social critic, public speaker, and blogger. He is best known for his books The Geography of Nowhere , a history of American suburbia and urban development, and the more recent The Long Emergency , where he argues that declining oil production is likely...
Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Allen Lethem is an American novelist, essayist and short story writer. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. It was followed by three more science fiction novels...
Lynn Nottage
Lynn Nottage
Lynn Nottage is an American playwright whose work often deals with the lives of women of African descent, African Americans and women. She was born in Brooklyn and is a graduate of Brown University and the Yale School of Drama. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005, and a MacArthur Genius...
Lonny Price
Lonny Price
Lonny Price is an American actor, writer, and director, primarily in theatre. He is known for making statements on current events in versions of his musicals. His acclaimed May 2008 New York Philharmonic production of Camelot was making a statement about the current war including having different...
Esmeralda Santiago
Esmeralda Santiago
Esmeralda Santiago is a Puerto Rican author and former actress known for her novels and memoirs.-Early life:Santiago was born on 17 May 1948 in the San Juan district of Villa Palmeras, Santurce, Puerto Rico. In 1961, she came to the continental United States when she was thirteen years old, the...
Barry Sonnenfeld
Barry Sonnenfeld
Barry Sonnenfeld is an American filmmaker and television director. He worked as cinematographer for the Coen brothers, then later he directed and produced big budget films such as Men in Black.-Life and career:...
Ray Tintori
Ray Tintori
Ray Tintori is an American director who has directed short films and music videos for bands MGMT, Chairlift, The Cool Kids, Boy Crisis, and The Killers. Tintori graduated from Wesleyan University in 2006, where he studied film, and from LaGuardia High School in Manhattan in 2001, where he was a...
Charles Van Doren
Charles Van Doren
Charles Lincoln Van Doren is an American intellectual, writer, and editor who was involved in a television quiz show scandal in the 1950s...
Sherman Yellen
Sherman Yellen
Sherman Yellen is a playwright and screenwriter.- Biography :Sherman Yellen was born in 1932 to Nathan and Lillian Yellen. He attended the High School of Music & Art in Harlem and graduated from Bard College on the Hudson in 1953 where he met his future wife, Joan Fuhr...

Producers / Entertainment Executives

Steven Bochco
Steven Bochco
Steven Ronald Bochco is a US television producer and writer. He has developed a number of popular television hits including Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, and NYPD Blue, as well as some notable flops such as Cop Rock....
Robert Greenwald
Robert Greenwald
Robert Greenwald is an American film director, film producer, and political activist.-Early life:Greenwald was born and raised in New York City, the son of Ruth and Harold Greenwald. He attended the city's High School of Performing Arts...
Lynne Littman
Lynne Littman
Lynne Littman is an American director. She has frequently worked with anthropologist Barbara Myerhoff. She directed Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years.-Awards:...
David Simon

Singers, songwriters, rappers, pop artists

Shelley Ackerman
Shelley Ackerman
Shelley Ackerman , is an American astrologer, writer, actress and singer. An avid and accomplished researcher, she specializes in creative, cultural, humanistic, and political astrology and is a frequent guest and commentator on radio and television news and entertainment shows.-Early life:The...
Nat Adderley, Jr.
Nat Adderley, Jr.
Nat Adderley, Jr. is an American pop and rhythm and blues music arranger and pianist who spent much of his music career arranging for Luther Vandross. The scion of a famed jazz family, his father Nat Adderley was a composer and jazz cornet and trumpet player, while his uncle Cannonball Adderley ...
Carole Bayer Sager
Carole Bayer Sager
Carole Bayer Sager is an American lyricist, songwriter, singer, and painter.-Introduction:Born in New York City, Sager graduated from New York University, where she majored in English, dramatic arts and speech...
Marilyn Bergman
Marilyn Bergman
Marilyn Bergman is a composer, songwriter and author.She was born Marilyn Keith in Brooklyn, New York and studied psychology and English at New York University...
Corina Brouder
Corina Brouder
Corina Brouder was born in The Bronx, New York City. As a child, her sister, Christina, spent some time in hospital after a hit and run incident, and Corina and her other siblings started entertaining her recovering sister and the other children in the ward...
Carol Cardenas
Eagle Eye Cherry
Inaya Day
Inaya Day
Inaya Day is an American singer, best known for her vocal work on house music tracks such as "Horny" by Mousse T, and her cover version of "Nasty Girl" by Prince protege Vanity 6.-Early career:...
Lola Falana
Lola Falana
Lola Falana is an American singer, dancer, and actress of Cuban and African American descent. Falana's father left Cuba to become a welder in the United States, where he met his wife...
Wynter Gordon
Wynter Gordon
Diana "Wynter" Gordon is an American pop/dance singer-songwriter. She began as a writer for other artists, later signing with Atlantic Records where she began working on an album while continuing to write songs for other acts and providing vocals on songs...
Jean Grae
Jean Grae
Jean Grae , born November 26, 1976 is an American hip hop artist who hails from South Africa. She rose to prominence in the underground hip-hop scene in New York City, and has since built an international fanbase.- Early life :...
Janis Ian
Janis Ian
Janis Ian is an American songwriter, singer, musician, columnist, and science fiction author. Ian first entered the folk music scene while still a teenager in the mid-sixties; most active musically in that decade and the 1970s, she has continued recording into the 21st century...
Kelis
Kelis
Kelis Rogers Kelis Rogers Kelis Rogers (born August 21, 1971 is an American musical artist. She is a BRIT Award, Q Award and NME Award winner and has been nominated for two Grammy Awards. She has had nine top 10 singles on the UK Singles Chart...
Domino Kirke
Domino (band)
Domino is a pop/rock band from New York City. The lead singer is Domino Kirke, daughter of Free/Bad Company drummer Simon Kirke. Bandmate Jordan Galland first heard Kirke sing in a SoHo karaoke bar...
Eartha Kitt
Eartha Kitt
Eartha Mae Kitt was an American singer, actress, and cabaret star. She was perhaps best known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 hit recordings of "C'est Si Bon" and the enduring Christmas novelty smash "Santa Baby." Orson Welles once called her the "most exciting woman in the...
Shari Lewis
Shari Lewis
Shari Lewis was an American ventriloquist, puppeteer, and children's television show host, most popular during the 1960s and 1990s...
Lunachicks
Lunachicks
Lunachicks were an all-women punk rock band from New York City. The band formed in 1987 and has been on hiatus since 2000. Their music was described as "a frenzied mix of punk, metal, pop and rock". The band claimed influences including The Ramones, Kiss, and the MC5.- Biography :Theo Kogan, Gina...
Melissa Manchester
Melissa Manchester
Melissa Manchester is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Beginning in the 1970s, she has recorded generally in the adult contemporary genre. She has also appeared as an actress on television, in films, and on stage....
Men Of Vizion
Men Of Vizion
Men of Vizion is an R&B quintet that came to fame in 1996, with the debut album, Personal, which featured the songs "Housekeeper" and "Do Thangz", produced by Teddy Riley, "Lil" Chris Smith.-Career:...
Liza Minnelli
Liza Minnelli
Liza May Minnelli is an American actress and singer. She is the daughter of singer and actress Judy Garland and film director Vincente Minnelli....
Dana Dane
Dana Dane
Dana McLeese, better known by his stage name Dana Dane, is an American hip hop recording artist known for performance of humorous lyrics and for his fashion sense.-Early life:...
Linda November
Linda November
Linda Ellen November is an American singer who sang tens of thousands of commercial jingles. She was the voice of the singing cat in the Meow Mix commercials, sang the jingle "Galaxy Glue" in the 1981 film The Incredible Shrinking Woman, the "Coke and a Smile" jingle in the classic Mean Joe Greene...
Laura Nyro
Laura Nyro
Laura Nyro was an American songwriter, singer, and pianist. She achieved considerable critical acclaim with her own recordings, particularly the albums Eli and the Thirteenth Confession and New York Tendaberry, and had commercial success with artists such as Barbra Streisand and The 5th...
Mark Rivera
Mark Rivera
Mark Rivera is a musician, musical director and corporate entertainment provider. In addition to playing soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxophones, Rivera's musical talents encompass vocals, guitar, percussion and keyboards.-Education:...
Aaron Schroeder
Aaron Schroeder
Aaron Schroeder was an American songwriter and music publisher.-Biography:Born Aaron Harold Schroder , he graduated from the school now known as the Fiorello H...
MC Serch
MC Serch
MC Serch is a Jewish-American hip hop MC and former member of 3rd Bass.-Biography:Serch grew up in Far Rockaway, Queens, attending Far Rockaway High School, and graduated from Music & Art High School...
Nicki Minaj
Nicki Minaj
Onika Tanya Maraj , better known by her stage name Nicki Minaj; ), is a Trinidadian-born American recording artist...
Slick Rick
Slick Rick
Richard Walters , better known by his stage name Slick Rick is a Grammy-nominated English-American rapper...
Karen Rodriguez
Karen Rodriguez
Karen Rodriguez is an American singer from New York City, New York. Rodriguez placed twelfth on the tenth season of American Idol.-Early life:...
Paul Stanley
Paul Stanley
Stanley Harvey Eisen , better known by his stage name Paul Stanley, is an American hard rock guitarist, singer, musician, painter and songwriter best known for being the rhythm guitarist and primary lead vocalist of the rock band Kiss. He is the writer or co-writer of many of the band's...
Elly Stone
Elly Stone
Elly Stone is an American singer and actress best known for her interpretations of the music of Jacques Brel.Stone began her career in the 1950s, singing in a variety of off-beat venues ranging from a carnival to a burlesque show. In 1962, she was Barbra Streisand’s understudy for the Broadway...
Pia Toscano
Pia Toscano
Pia Ann Rose Toscano is an American singer from Howard Beach, New York. Toscano placed ninth on the tenth season of American Idol. Considered to be a frontrunner in the competition, her elimination came as a shock to judges Randy Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, and Steven Tyler, all of whom were visibly...
Mario Vazquez
Mario Vazquez
Mario Adrián Vázquez is a Puerto Rican-American singer from The Bronx, New York City. He competed on American Idol's fourth season, which aired on the FOX network in early 2005.-Early life:...
Daphne Rubin-Vega
Daphne Rubin-Vega
Daphne Rubin-Vega is a dancer, singer, and actress. She is best known for originating the role of Mimi Marquez in the Broadway musical Rent, and the role of Lucy, in the Off-Broadway play Jack Goes Boating.-Biography:Rubin-Vega was born in Panama City, Panama, the daughter of Daphine Vega, a...
Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Nadine Vega is an American songwriter and singer known for her eclectic folk-inspired music.Two of Vega's songs reached the top 10 of various international chart listings: "Luka" and "Tom's Diner"...
Lisa Velez
Eric Weissberg
Eric Weissberg
Eric Weissberg is an American banjo player, best known for the theme from the movie Deliverance.-Biography:Eric Weissberg went to the University of Wisconsin–Madison, then the Juilliard School of Music. He joined an early version of the Greenbriar Boys , but left before they made any recordings....
Heather Leigh West
Heather Leigh West
Heather Leigh West is a New York City based American recording artist best known for her work in house music.-Early life and education:Born into a theater family in New York City, West was always surrounded by creative talent...
Peter Yarrow
Peter Yarrow
Peter Yarrow is an American singer who found fame with the 1960s folk music trio Peter, Paul and Mary. Yarrow co-wrote one of the group's most famous songs, "Puff, the Magic Dragon"...

Actors/Actresses

Kirk Acevedo
Kirk Acevedo
Kirk Acevedo is an American actor. He is primarily known for his portrayals of Miguel Alvarez in the HBO series Oz, Joe Toye in Band of Brothers and FBI Agent Charlie Francis in the science-fiction series Fringe....
Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Joanna Aniston is an American actress, film director, and producer, best known for her role as Rachel Green on the television sitcom Friends, a role which earned her an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.Aniston has also enjoyed a successful film career,...
Geoffrey Arend
Geoffrey Arend
-Life and career:Arend was born in the Manhattan borough of New York City, to a Caucasian father and a Pakistani mother. He graduated from New York City's Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in 1996. In 2000, he began providing voices for video games such as Daria's...
Tichina Arnold
Tichina Arnold
Tichina Rolanda Arnold is an American actress and singer. She is best known for having portrayed the roles of Pamela James on the FOX sitcom Martin and the family matriarch Rochelle on the UPN/CW sitcom Everybody Hates Chris....
Morena Baccarin
Morena Baccarin
Morena Baccarin is a Brazilian-born American actress most widely known for roles in several American science fiction television shows: as Inara Serra in the series Firefly; as Adria in the series Stargate SG-1; and as Anna in the 2009 version of the series V...
Ellen Barkin
Ellen Barkin
Ellen Barkin is an American film, television and theatre actress.-Early life:She was born Ellen Rona Barkin in Bronx, a borough of New York City, New York, the daughter of Evelyn , a hospital administrator who worked at Jamaica Hospital, and Sol Barkin, a chemical salesman...
Richard Benjamin
Richard Benjamin
Richard Benjamin is an American actor and film director. He has starred in a number of productions, including Goodbye, Columbus , based on the novella by Philip Roth, and Westworld .-Life and career:...
N'Bushe Wright
N'Bushe Wright
N'Bushe Wright is an American film and television actress, known mainly for her part in Blade. A native of New York City, she is the daughter of jazzman Stanely Wright aka Suleiman-Marim Wright...
Chaz Bono
Julie Bovasso
Julie Bovasso
Julie Bovasso was an American actress of stage, screen and television. She was born in Brooklyn, New York to an Italian-American family.-Career:Bovasso appeared in many films, including Saturday Night Fever and...
Adrien Brody
Adrien Brody
Adrien Brody is an American actor and film producer. He received widespread recognition and acclaim after starring in Roman Polanski's The Pianist . Winning the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2003 at age 29, he is the youngest actor to do so...
Christina Vidal
Christina Vidal
Christina Abbi Vidal is a former American film and television actress. She is best known for her roles in the films Life with Mikey, Brink! , Freaky Friday ,...
Cara Buono
Cara Buono
Cara Buono is an American actress, screenwriter and director, probably best known for her role as Dr. Faye Miller in the fourth season of the AMC drama series Mad Men.-Early life:...
Rory Cochrane
Rory Cochrane
Rory Cochrane is an American actor. He is known for playing Ron Slater in Dazed and Confused, Lucas in Empire Records, and Tim Speedle in CSI: Miami.-Early life:...
Charles Busch
Charles Busch
Charles Louis Busch is an American actor, screenwriter, playwright and female impersonator, known for his appearances on stage in his own camp style plays and in film and television. He wrote The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, which was a success on Broadway.-Early life:Busch was born in 1954 and...
Northern Calloway
Northern Calloway
Northern James Calloway was an American actor who played David on Sesame Street from 1971 through 1989, and also voiced Muppet characters including Same Sound Brown....
Diahann Carroll
Thom Christopher
Thom Christopher
Thom Christopher is an American actor.He is best known for his portrayal of mob boss Carlo Hesser and Mortimer Bern on the ABC soap opera, One Life to Live.Christopher has also had roles on soap operas such as Loving and Guiding Light...
Keith David
Keith David
Keith David Williams , better known as Keith David, is an American film, television, voice actor, and singer. He is perhaps most known for his live-action roles in such films as Crash, There's Something About Mary, Barbershop and Men at Work...
Michael DeLorenzo
Michael DeLorenzo
Michael DeLorenzo is an American actor, director and musician. He is best known for his portrayal of NYPD Detective Eddie Torres on the Fox Thursday night television series New York Undercover which was aired from 1994-1998....
Dom DeLuise
Dom DeLuise
Dominick "Dom" DeLuise was an American actor, comedian, film director, television producer, chef, and author. He was the husband of actress Carol Arthur from 1965 until his death and the father of: actor, director, pianist, and writer Peter DeLuise; actor David DeLuise; and actor Michael DeLuise...
Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973...
Alex Désert
Alex Désert
Alex Désert is a Haitian-American actor and musician most known for his roles in the TV series The Flash, Becker, and Boy Meets World...
Dagmara Dominczyk
Ron Eldard
Ron Eldard
Ronald Jason "Ron" Eldard is an American actor.-Early life:Eldard, the second youngest of seven children , was born on Long Island, New York. Eldard's mother died in a car accident when he was a child, and Eldard and his siblings were sent to live with various family members...
Omar Epps
Omar Epps
Omar Hashim Epps is an American actor, singer, songwriter, and record producer. His film roles include Major League II, Juice, Higher Learning, Scream 2, The Wood, In Too Deep, and Love and Basketball. Epps' television work includes the role of Dr. Dennis Gant on the US medical drama series ER,...
Donald Faison
Donald Faison
Donald Adeosun Faison is an American actor, comedian, and voice actor best known for his role as Dr. Chris Turk in the ABC comedy-drama Scrubs and as Murray in the film Clueless and the subsequent television series of the same name.Faison has also co-starred in the films Remember the Titans ,...
Laurence Fishburne
Laurence Fishburne
Laurence John Fishburne III is an American film and stage actor, playwright, director, and producer. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Morpheus in the Matrix science fiction film trilogy, as Cowboy Curtis on the 1980's television show Pee-wee's Playhouse, and as singer-musician Ike Turner...
Carla Gallo
Carla Gallo
Carla Gallo is an American actress notable for roles in the television series Undeclared, Carnivàle, and Bones, and in the indie film Spanking the Monkey.-Filmography:-External links:...
Sarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Prinze , known professionally by her birth name of Sarah Michelle Gellar , is an American actress, singer and executive producer...
Rick Gonzalez
Rick Gonzalez
Rick Gonzalez is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Timo Cruz in the motion picture Coach Carter, and as Ben Gonzalez on the CW supernatural drama television series Reaper.-Early life:...
Cliff Gorman
Cliff Gorman
Cliff Gorman was an American stage and screen actor. He won an Obie award in 1968 for the stage presentation of The Boys in the Band, and went on to reprise his role in the 1970 film version....
Adrian Grenier
Adrian Grenier
Adrian Grenier is an American actor, musician and director. He is best known for his lead role on the HBO original series, Entourage, as Vincent Chase.-Early life:...
Anna Maria Horsford
Anna Maria Horsford
Anna Maria Horsford is an American television and film actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Thelma Frye on the sitcom Amen, her role as Craig Jones' mother, Betty Jones, in the 1995 comedy, Friday and the 2002 comedy Friday After Next and as security guard Dee on The Wayans Bros.,...
Jackee Harry
Jackée Harry
Jacqueline Yvonne "Jackée" Harry , better known by her professional name Jackée, is an American actress and television personality, primarily known for her roles on sitcoms and other types of television shows...
Ben Harney
Ben Harney
Benjamin Robertson "Ben" Harney was a United States of America songwriter, entertainer, and pioneer of ragtime music. His 1895 composition "You've Been a Good Old Wagon but You Done Broke Down" is regarded as one of the first published ragtime songs...
Monica Keena
Monica Keena
Monica C. Keena is an American actress, known for her roles as Abby Morgan on Dawson's Creek, Rachel Lindquist on the short-lived comedy Undeclared, Kristin on HBO's Entourage, and as Lori Campbell in Freddy vs. Jason....
Paula Kelly
Paula Kelly (actress/dancer)
Paula Kelly is a dancer and actress in motion pictures, television and theatre.-Early life and career:...
Yunjin Kim
Dawnn Lewis
Dawnn Lewis
Dawnn Lewis is an American actress and singer, perhaps best known for her roles on sitcoms such as A Different World and in the first season of Hangin' with Mr. Cooper.-Career:...
Hal Linden
Hal Linden
Hal Linden is an American stage and television actor and television director, best known for his role in the television comedy series Barney Miller and as presenter on the ABC educational series Animals, Animals, Animals....
Jodi Long
Jodi Long
Jodi Long is an American actress.She was raised in Queens, New York. Her parents are Kimiye , a showgirl performer of Japanese American descent, and Lawrence K...
Priscilla Lopez
Priscilla Lopez
Priscilla Lopez is an American singer, dancer, and actress.-Early life:Lopez was born in the Bronx, New York to Francisco Lopez, a hotel banquet foreman and Laura , who were moved to New York from their native Puerto Rico...
Sonia Manzano
Sonia Manzano
Sonia Manzano is an American actress and writer. She is best known for playing Maria on Sesame Street since 1971. She also licenses her image to promote items of baby clothes and plates in Hispanic America....
Janet Margolin
Janet Margolin
Janet Margolin was an American theater, television and film actress.- Early life :Margolin was born in New York City, the daughter of Benjamin Margolin, an accountant who was born in Russia and was founder and president of the Nephrosis Foundation, now the Kidney Foundation of New York...
Graham Patrick Martin
Graham Patrick Martin
Graham Patrick Martin is an American film and television actor. He played the older son of Bill Engvall in the comedy The Bill Engvall Show, which played from 2007-2009. He played Willie Chandler, Jr., in Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door and also appeared in an episode of Law and Order:...
Emily Meade
Emily Meade
Emily Meade is an American film and television actress. She has been cast in a potentially recurring role as a future version of the character Ella Blake in the U.S. science fiction series Fringe...
Jim Moody
Jim Moody (actor)
Jim Moody is a television and film character actor. He played the tough talking counselor/teacher Gene Daniels in Bad Boys. His first feature film was in the 1980 hit film Fame, which he played Mr. Farrell, a drama teacher. Jim starred in the 1983 comedy film D.C. Cab as Arnie, a member of the...
Keith Nobbs
Keith Nobbs
Keith Nobbs is an American stage, television, and film actor perhaps best known for his portrayal of Joey Ice Cream in the TV series The Black Donnellys....
Ana Ortiz
Ana Ortiz
Ana Ortíz is an American actress and singer. She is a native of Manhattan, but was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was a regular cast-member on the ABC comedy-drama series Ugly Betty, in which she plays the title character's older sister, Hilda Suarez...
Al Pacino
Al Pacino
Alfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...
Corey Parker
Corey Parker (actor)
Corey Parker is an American actor and acting coach.-Biography:Corey Parker was born in New York City, the son of acting coach Rochelle "Rocky" Parker...
Sarah Paulson
Sarah Paulson
-Career:She was a series regular on the cult television show American Gothic and the WB series Jack & Jill , playing the character "Elisa Cronkite"...
Carl Anthony Payne II
Carl Anthony Payne II
Carl Anthony Payne II is an American actor. He studied at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, New York and Howard University, Washington DC...
Mizuo Peck
Mizuo Peck
Mizuo Peck is an American actress best known for playing Sacagawea in the film Night at the Museum and its sequel.-Life and career:Peck was born in New York City, New York of Japanese, Irish, English, and Cherokee descent...
Elizabeth Peña
Elizabeth Peña
Elizabeth Peña is an American actress and the daughter of a theater-company co-founder, who has also compiled experience as a television director in her own right.-Early life:...
Brock Peters
Brock Peters
Brock Peters was an American actor, best known for playing the role of Tom Robinson in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird...
Suzanne Pleshette
Suzanne Pleshette
Suzanne Pleshette was an American actress, on stage, screen and television.After beginning her career in theatre, she began appearing in films in the early 1960s, such as Rome Adventure and Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds...
Devin Ratray
Devin Ratray
Devin D. Ratray is an American actor, singer and songwriter. He is most famous for his roles in Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.-Biography:...
Tony Roberts
Tony Roberts (actor)
David Anthony "Tony" Roberts is an American actor. He is best known for his roles in several Woody Allen movies, usually cast as Allen's best friend.-Early life:...
Amy Ryan
Amy Ryan
Amy Ryan is an American actress. She has been nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe for her performance in Gone Baby Gone and is also known for her roles in the HBO series The Wire, playing Port Authority Officer Beadie Russell; In Treatment, playing psychiatrist Adele Brousse; and The...
Jennifer Salt
Jennifer Salt
Jennifer Salt is an American producer, screenwriter, and former actress.-Life and career:Salt was born in Los Angeles, California. Her parents were screenwriter Waldo Salt and actress Mary Davenport; her stepmother was the writer Eve Merriam...
Helen Slater
Helen Slater
Helen Rachel Slater is an American actress and singer-songwriter.She appeared in the title role in the 1984 film Supergirl. In the following years she starred in several very successful comedy-drama films such as Ruthless People, The Secret of My Success, and City Slickers...
Wesley Snipes
Wesley Snipes
Wesley Trent Snipes is an American actor, film producer, and martial artist, who has starred in numerous action films, thrillers, and dramatic feature films. Snipes is known for playing the Marvel Comics character Blade in the Blade film trilogy, among various other high profile roles...
Susan Strasberg
Susan Strasberg
Susan Elizabeth Strasberg was an American film and stage actress.-Background and career:Strasberg was born in New York City, New York, the daughter of theatre director and drama coach Lee Strasberg of the Actors Studio and former actress Paula Strasberg...
Robin Strasser
Robin Strasser
Robin Strasser is an American actress.Strasser is best known for her Daytime Emmy Award-winning portrayal of Dr. Dorian Lord on the ABC daytime soap opera One Life to Live. Strasser stepped into the role in March 1979, first appearing Friday, April 13, 1979 and left in 1987, returning from...
Glynn Turman
Glynn Turman
Glynn Russell Turman is an American stage, television, and film actor as well as a writer, director, and producer. He is perhaps best known for his roles as high school student Leroy "Preach" Jackson in the 1975 coming-of-age film Cooley High, math professor and retired Army colonel Bradford...
Martha Veléz
Martha Veléz
Martha Carmen Josephine Hernandéz Rosario de Veléz is an American singer and actress of Puerto Rican descent. Veléz is the former wife of famous trumpet player Keith Johnson. Her son is performance artist,writer/poet, singer, Taj Johnson. Taj appeared as series regular for two years on Parker...
Ben Vereen
Ben Vereen
Ben Vereen is an American actor, dancer, and singer who has appeared in numerous Broadway theatre shows. Vereen graduated from Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts.- Early years :...
Jessica Walter
Jessica Walter
Jessica Walter is an American actress, known for the films Play Misty for Me, Grand Prix, and for her role as Lucille Bluth on the sitcom Arrested Development...
Merritt Wever
Merritt Wever
-Early life:She graduated from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, and then Sarah Lawrence College. She trained in acting in New York and has appeared in Brooke Berman's play, Smashing and in Cavedweller with Deidre O'Connell, both Off Broadway.-Career:...
Lesley Ann Warren
Lesley Ann Warren
Lesley Ann Warren is an American actress and singer. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award and Emmy Awards and five times for Golden Globe, winning one....
Marlon Wayans
Marlon Wayans
Marlon L. Wayans is an American actor, model producer, comedian, writer, and director of movies, beginning with his role as a pedestrian in I'm Gonna Git You Sucka in 1988...
Steven Weber
Steven Weber (actor)
Steven Robert Weber is an American actor. He is best known for his role in the television show Wings which aired throughout the 1990s on NBC.-Early life:...
Billy Dee Williams
Billy Dee Williams
William December "Billy Dee" Williams, Jr. is an American actor, artist, singer, and writer.-Early life:Williams was born in New York City, New York, the son of Loretta...
Vanessa A. Williams
Vanessa A. Williams
Vanessa A. Williams is an American actress who has appeared in several television series such as Melrose Place and the Showtime cable television series Soul Food. In 1996, she was featured in the television series Murder One...

Architects

Charles Gwathmey
Charles Gwathmey
Charles Gwathmey was an American architect. He was a principal at Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects, as well as one of the five architects identified as The New York Five in 1969...
Robert Siegel
Robert Siegel (architect)
Robert Siegel, FAIA is an American Architect who, along with Charles Gwathmey, founded the architectural firm of Gwathmey Siegel & Associates. He graduated from Pratt Institute with a Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1962 and received his Master of Architecture degree from Harvard University in...

Artists & Illustrators

Justin Bua
Justin Bua
Justin BUA is an artist from New York City's Upper West Side, raised between Manhattan and East Flatbush, Brooklyn. BUA was fascinated by the raw, visceral street life of the city. He attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Performing Arts and complemented his education on the...
James Bama
James Bama
James Bama is an American artist known for his realistic paintings and etchings of Western subjects. Life in Wyoming led to his comment, "Here an artist can trace the beginnings of Western history, see the first buildings, the oldest wagons, saddles and guns, and be up close to the remnants of...
Cora Cohen
Cora Cohen
Cora Cohen is an American Abstract Painter. Cohen lives and works in Long Island City, New York. Her works are in many major public collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Swedish State Art Council, The Ulla and Heiner Pietzsch Collection, Berlin, The Weatherspoon Art...
Rosalyn Drexler
Rosalyn Drexler
Rosalyn Drexler is a Pop artist, novelist, Obie Award-winning playwright, and Emmy Award-winning screenwriter. She is represented by Pace Gallery.-Early life:...
Will Elder
Will Elder
William Elder was an American illustrator and comic book artist who worked in numerous areas of commercial art, but is best known for a zany cartoon style that helped launch Harvey Kurtzman's Mad comic book in 1952....
Audrey Flack
Audrey Flack
Audrey Flack is an American photorealist painter, printmaker, and sculptor.Flack studied fine arts in New York from 1948 to 1953. She earned a graduate degree and an honorary doctorate from Cooper Union in New York City, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Yale University. She studied art history at...
Mary Frank
Mary Frank
Mary Frank née Mary Lockspeiser is a visual artist known primarily as a sculptor, painter and printmaker/illustrator.- Biography :...
Laurence Gartel
Laurence Gartel
Laurence Gartel is an American artist.His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, USA, Joan Whitney Payson Museum, Long Beach Museum of Art, Princeton Art Museum, PS 1, Norton Museum and in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of American History and the...
Milton Glaser
Milton Glaser
Milton Glaser is a graphic designer, best known for the I Love New York logo, his "Bob Dylan" poster, the "DC bullet" logo used by DC Comics from 1977 to 2005, and the "Brooklyn Brewery" logo. He also founded New York Magazine with Clay Felker in 1968.-Biography:Glaser was born into a Hungarian...
Dean Haspiel
Dean Haspiel
Dean Edmund Haspiel is an American comic book artist. He is known for his collaborations with writer Harvey Pekar on his American Splendor series as well as the graphic novel The Quitter. He has been nominated for numerous Eisner Awards, and won a 2010 Emmy Award for TV design work.-Early...
Joel Iskowitz
Joel Iskowitz
Joel Iskowitz is an American designer, book illustrator, print artist and stamp, coin and medal designer. From an initial interest in medical illustration, this graphic artist has branched to other fields. He specializes in highly realistic art resulting from extensive research to make his designs...
Al Jaffee
Al Jaffee
Abraham Jaffee , known as Al Jaffee, is an American cartoonist. He is notable for his work in the satirical magazine Mad, including his trademark feature, the Mad Fold-in. As of 2010, Jaffee remains a regular in the magazine after 55 years and is its longest-running contributor...
Wolf Kahn
Wolf Kahn
Wolf Kahn is a German-born American painter.Kahn is known for his combination of realism and Color Field, and known to work in pastel and oil paint. He studied under Hans Hofmann, and also graduated from the University of Chicago...
Allan Kaprow
Allan Kaprow
Allan Kaprow was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the "Environment" and "Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as their theory. His Happenings - some 200 of them - evolved over the years...
Warren Kremer
Warren Kremer
Warren Kremer was an American comics writer and artist best known for his creation of the Harvey Comics characters Richie Rich, Hot Stuff the Little Devil and Stumbo the Giant. His style is known for big, bold compositions, and a keen sense of contrast and color.- Childhood and early career...
Harvey Kurtzman
Harvey Kurtzman
Harvey Kurtzman was an American cartoonist and the editor of several comic books and magazines. Kurtzman often signed his name H. Kurtz, followed by a stick figure Harvey Kurtzman (October 3, 1924, Brooklyn, New York – February 21, 1993) was an American cartoonist and the editor of several comic...
Emily Mason
Emily Mason
Emily Mason is an American abstract painter.Mason is known for her work in Color Field painting and Lyrical Abstraction. She was born and raised in New York City, where she continues to reside....
Josh Neufeld
Josh Neufeld
Josh Neufeld is an alternative cartoonist known for his nonfiction comics on subjects like Hurricane Katrina, international travel, and finance, as well as his collaborations with writers like Harvey Pekar and Brooke Gladstone...
Reginald Pollack
Reginald Pollack
Reginald Murray Pollack was an American painter known for metaphorical and theme based works of art. He was also a veteran of World War II having served in the Pacific Theater of Operations.-Early Life:...
Robert Riger
Robert Riger
Robert Riger was a celebrated sports illustrator, photographer, award-winning television director, and cinematographer....
Edward Sorel
Edward Sorel
Edward Sorel is an illustrator, caricaturist, cartoonist, and graphic designer.Sorel is noted for his wavy pen-and-ink style, which he describes as "spontaneous direct drawing," since he does not use pencil or tracing for guidance...
Susan Schwalb
Susan Schwalb
Susan Schwalb is a contemporary silverpoint artist. She was born in New York City , graduated from the High School of Music & Art , and has a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University...
Daniel Schwartz
Daniel Schwartz
Daniel Schwartz is an illustrator. His work has appear in publications including Redbook.- External links :*...
Aaron Shikler
Aaron Shikler
Aaron Shikler is an American artist noted for portraits of American statesmen and celebrities like Jane Engelhard and Sister Parish....
Burton Silverman
Burton Silverman
Burton Silverman is an American painter.A 1949 graduate of Columbia University, Silverman's work has concentrated on, as he put it, "the landscape of the human face." As a portrait artist, he has completed commissions for hundreds of noteworthy patrons...
Larry Walker
Larry Walker
Larry Kenneth Robert Walker is a former right fielder in Major League Baseball. From 1989 through 2005, Walker played for the Montreal Expos , Colorado Rockies , and St. Louis Cardinals...
Fred Wilson
Fred Wilson (artist)
Conceptual artist Fred Wilson describes himself as of "African, Native American, European and Amerindian" descent. Wilson received a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant in 1999 and the Larry Aldrich Foundation Award in 2003. Wilson represented the United States at the Biennial Cairo in 1992 and the...
Marian Zazeela
Marian Zazeela
Marian Zazeela is a light-artist, designer, painter and musician based in New York City.-Life and work:Born to Russian-Jewish parents and raised in the Bronx, Marian Zazeela was educated at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts and at Bennington College where she...

Designers

Milton Glaser
Milton Glaser
Milton Glaser is a graphic designer, best known for the I Love New York logo, his "Bob Dylan" poster, the "DC bullet" logo used by DC Comics from 1977 to 2005, and the "Brooklyn Brewery" logo. He also founded New York Magazine with Clay Felker in 1968.-Biography:Glaser was born into a Hungarian...
Isaac Mizrahi
Isaac Mizrahi
Isaac Mizrahi is an American TV presenter, fashion designer, and was the creative director of Liz Claiborne. He is best known for his eponymous fashion lines.-Early life:...

Other Academics

Stanley Aronowitz
Stanley Aronowitz
Stanley Aronowitz is professor of sociology, cultural studies, and urban education at the CUNY Graduate Center. He is also a veteran political activist and cultural critic and an advocate for organized labor.-Social Text:...
Heather Knight

Applications

Students are accepted based on auditions (Dance, Drama, Instrumental Music and Vocal Music) and portfolios (Art and Technical Theater). Their academic and attendance records are also scrutinized with most incoming students scoring at least a "3" - meeting standards - on their seventh grade standardized exams. Auditions are held in November and December.

It is difficult to be accepted into one of the specialized schools, considering the thousands of students who audition from all five boroughs of New York. Those auditioning for LaGuardia must realize that chances of securing a spot depend upon the ratio between the number of spots and number of applicants within that specific department; in other words, some departments are harder to get into than others. In the instrumental department, auditions are separated even further; the auditioner would be competing only against auditioners who auditioned on the same instrument, and therefore it is harder to get in using very common instrument than on a less common one.

Sports

LaGuardia offers 21 different sports on the Varsity level. It is one of 8 schools in New York City which still runs the Gymnastics Program. LaGuardia competes with the Public School Athletic League (PSAL). In the fall they offer sports such as bowling, swimming, volleyball, cross country (girls), fencing (co-ed), soccer, and cross country (boys). In the winter, students can participate in other sports such as basketball, gymnastics, and indoor track (boys and girls). In the spring the school offers baseball, outdoor track, tennis, volleyball (boys), handball, outdoor track, softball and tennis (girls).

External links

Official school website created and supported by the Parents' Association
Laguardia Cycling Association created and run by current students at the school
Notable alumni of LaGuardia Arts and its two legacy schools: Music & Art and Performing Arts
School information
Website of The School of Performing Arts (1948–1984) Alumni
Manhattan VIII 2008–2009 Standings