Kimmel Center Presents Launches ¡VOZ! Congreso with Legendary Vocalist and Actress RITA MORENO, April 11
MARCH 13, 2012
“We love her for her grace and dignity and sense of humor and love of her craft.”
Kimmel Center Presents launches ¡Voz! Congreso at the Kimmel Center, a new three year initiative that provides intimate conversations with acclaimed Latino celebrities and intellectuals. Living legend Rita Moreno is the inaugural speaker of Voz! Congreso on Wednesday, April 11 at 7:30 p.m. in Perelman Theater. At a stunning 80 years young, the artist who originated the silver screen role of Anita in the film version of West Side Story returns to the stage to share My Life from Zero to Sixty Plus Twenty, a journey of Moreno’s triumphant and challenging roles in film, TV, and on stage. Q&A opportunity immediately follows for audience members.
An industry icon with 70 years of acting, theater and artistic experience, Rita Moreno is one of the most celebrated female entertainers in show business. The trailblazing star of Puerto Rican descent is the only female performer to have won all four of the most prestigious show business awards – the Oscar, the Emmy, the Tony and the Grammy – and has set an unparalleled bar only matched by her onstage exuberance. Moreno is currently juggling performances of her own one-woman stage show, Life Without Make-up, with television appearances as Fran Drescher's mother in TV Land's Happily Divorced. In addition, Moreno is preparing to record a new album as a follow up to her eponymous CD and is currently at work penning her autobiography.
¡Voz! Congreso at the Kimmel Center is generously sponsored by Health Partners of Philadelphia, Congreso, and UGI Corporation.
Tickets for Rita Moreno are available for $25 to $75, and can be purchased by calling 215-893-1999, online at kimmelcenter.org, or at the Kimmel Center Box Office located on Broad and Spruce streets, Philadelphia, Pa. (open daily from 10am to 6pm, later on performance evenings).
“Bigger than life is not difficult for me. I am bigger than life.”– Rita Moreno
Rita Moreno belongs to an elite group of only eight living performers who have won entertainment’s most esteemed awards: The Oscar, The Emmy, The Tony and The Grammy. Her Academy Award winning performance debuted in 1962 as Latina spitfire, Anita, in the film version of West Side Story, for which she also won The Golden Globe. In 1972, she received a Grammy award for her performance on The Electric Company Album, based on the long-running children's television series. In 1975, she received a Tony Award for her comedic triumph as Googie Gomez in Broadway's The Ritz. And, her two Emmy Awards were awarded to her for a variety appearance on The Muppet Show in 1977, and the following year for a dramatic turn on The Rockford Files. Over the decades, Rita Moreno has continued to receive accolades and honors for her contributions to the industry including The National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama in 2010, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1995, as well as the Here I Stand Award for activism in the arts and the HOLA Lifetime Achievement Award.
Moreno was born Rosa Dolores Alverio in Humacao, a small town near the Puerto Rican rain forest. At age 5, she moved with her mother to New York where the precocious child soon began dance lessons with Rita Hayworth’s uncle, Paco Cansino. She made her Broadway debut at just 13 in Skydrift, starring Eli Wallach. Then, in true Hollywood tradition, a talent scout spotted her and arranged for the teen to meet MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer, who signed her to a film contract. Her Hollywood career advanced steadily, including early films with stars such as Richard Widmark, Esther Williams, and Mario Lanza. She has appeared in Singin’ in the Rain starring Gene Kelly and was featured as Tuptim in the classic The King and I with Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr. Although early roles sometimes found her typecast as a Mexican spitfire or Indian maiden, she also broke Hollywood barriers and the Latina mold playing an Irish teacher, an Italian widow, a female evangelist, a proper Englishwoman and a Southern belle, cementing her status as a major big-screen talent.
Other significant film appearances include: The Night of the Following Day with Marlon Brando in 1967; Marlowe with James Garner; Popi, as Alan Arkin’s girlfriend; and in Mike Nichol’s Carnal Knowledge. She reprised the role of Googie Gomez in the film version of The Ritz, followed by Alan Alda’s The Four Seasons, Columbia Pictures' acclaimed I Like it Like That and Angus with George C. Scott. More recently she starred in the indie feature Carlo’s Wake with Christopher Meloni and in Blue Moon opposite Ben Gazzara. In addition, she appeared in the highly acclaimed movie Pinero starring Benjamin Bratt and in John Sayles film, Casa de los Babys.
Her long stage career has included starring roles on both sides of the Atlantic. In London, she appeared in Hal Prince’s 1962 production of She Loves Me and in the 1997 West End run of Sunset Boulevard. In New York, she has starred in Lorraine Hansbury’s The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, opposite Robert Shaw in Gantry and with Jimmy Coco in The Last of the Red Hot Lovers. Moreno's diverse regional theatre roles include Lola in Damn Yankees, Anne Sullivan in The Miracle Worker, Doris in The Owl and the Pussycat and Mama Rose in Gypsy. At Berkeley Rep Theater in California, she received rave reviews for her interpretation of Maria Callas in Terrence McNally's play Master Class in 2004 and, two seasons later, she received similar acclaim for her portrayal of Amanda Wingfield in that company's The Glass Menagerie.
Moreno has guest starred on a wide variety of television productions in the United States and abroad. She is proud to have been a featured artist for many years on The Electric Company, the highly regarded educational show for children. She starred in her own TV series based on the film 9 to 5. Additionally, she played opposite Burt Reynolds in B.L. Stryker and was a series regular with Bill Cosby in the NBC Cosby Mystery Series. In 2007, she starred in the CBS series Cane and most recently she was one of the leads in the highly acclaimed HBO series OZ. She performs concerts across the country and often appears as a guest artist with symphony orchestras. In January 1993, she was invited to perform at President Clinton’s inauguration and later that month sang at the White House. In 2002 she appeared as the guest artist with the San Francisco Symphony in a production of Candide.
In addition to film, stage, television and concert commitments, Ms. Moreno fills her spare time by lecturing to various organizations and university audiences on such varied topics as The Value of Diversity to our Culture, The Power of Language, Getting Older without Getting Old and A History of the Arts in Film TV & Theatre. She is also involved with a number of civic and charitable organizations and events.
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Kimmel Center, Inc., a charitable, not-for-profit organization, owns, manages, supports and maintains The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, which includes Verizon Hall, Perelman Theater, Innovation Studio and the
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