Legacy and the Queen

Annie Matthew is a novelist and a poet. In a former life, she was a professional athlete. She now lives in Iowa with her gray furry dog, Gus.

Kobe Bryant was an Academy Award winner, a New York Times best-selling author, and the CEO of Granity Studios, a multimedia content creation company. He was also a five-time NBA champion, two-time NBA Finals MVP, NBA MVP, and two-time Olympic gold medalist. Above all else, he was a loving husband and a doting father to four girls. In everything he built, Kobe was driven to teach the next generation how to reach their full potential. He believed in the beauty of the process, in the strength that comes from inner magic, and in achieving the impossible. His legacy continues today.

Annie Matthew is a novelist and a poet. In a former life, she was a professional athlete. She now lives in Iowa with her gray furry dog, Gus.

Whether she is entertaining audiences on stage and screen, breaking new ground as a director, or teaching the next generation of artists, Phylicia Rashad is one of the entertainment world's most extraordinary performing artists.

A versatile performer, Rashad became a household name when she portrayed Claire Huxtable on The Cosby Show, a character whose appeal has earned her numerous honors and awards for over two decades. She has appeared as Diana Dubois on the popular Fox TV series Empire, as Carol on This Is Us, and will be featured in Tarrell Alvin McCraney's David Makes Man, a new series on the OWN Network.

While television was a catalyst in the rise of Rashad's career, she has also been a force on the stage, appearing both on and Off-Broadway, often in projects that showcase her musical talent such as Jelly's Last Jam, Into The Woods, Dreamgirls, and The Wiz.

In 2016, Ms. Rashad was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame, received the 2016 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Leading Actress in a Play for her performance as Shelah in Tarell Alvin McCraney's Head of Passes at the Public Theater, which she reprised at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.

On Broadway, Ms. Rashad has performed as Violet Weston in August Osage County, Big Mama in Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (a role that she reprised on the London Stage), Aunt Ester in August Wilson’s Gem Of The Ocean,/i>, (Tony Award nomination), and Queen Britannia in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline at Lincoln Center.

Ms. Rashad received both the Drama Desk and the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her riveting performance as Lena Younger in the Broadway revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin In The Sun. She appeared in Ryan Coogler's Creed, Tyler Perry's Good Deeds, and starred in Perry's highly acclaimed version of Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf.

Phylicia made her critically-acclaimed directorial debut at the Seattle Repertory Theater with August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean. She has also directed Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (2014 NAACP Theatre Award for Best Director) at the Mark Taper Forum, Immediate Family at the Taper and Goodman Theatre, Fences at the Long Wharf Theatre and McCarter Theatre, A Raisin in the Sun at Ebony Repertory Theatre, Kirk Douglas Theatre, and Westport Country Playhouse, Four Little Girls at the Kennedy Center, Our Lady of 121st Street at the Signature Theatre, and The Roommate at Steppenwolf Theatre.

Respected in the academic world, Rashad is the first recipient of the Denzel Washington Chair in Theatre at Fordham University. She received an Honorary Doctorate from Spelman College where First Lady Michelle Obama delivered the 2011 commencement address.

In 2015, Ms. Rashad received the BET Honors Theatrical Arts Award, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre's Spirit of Shakespeare Award, and the Inaugural Legacy Award of the Ruben Santiago-Hudson Fine Arts Learning Center, amongst many other awards. She also serves on a number of prestigious boards, including the PRASAD Project.

Since 2017, Phylicia Rashad has been the Brand Ambassador of the National Trust for Historic Preservation African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. Phylicia Rashad graduated Magna Cum Laude from Howard University and is the mother of two adult children.