CommCabaret: A Celebration of Music and Song with E. Patrick Johnson

Friday, March 21, 2025 — New York City
Performer Bios

E. Patrick Johnson

E. Patrick Johnson is the Dean of the School of Communication and the Annenberg University Professor. A scholar/artist, Johnson performs nationally and internationally and has published widely in the areas of race, gender, sexuality and performance. Johnson is a prolific performer and scholar, and an inspiring teacher, whose research and artistry has greatly impacted African American studies, Performance studies, and Gender and Sexuality studies.

He has written two award-winning books, Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity (Duke UP, 2003), which won the Lilla A. Heston Award, the Errol Hill Book Award, and was a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South—An Oral History (University of North Carolina UP, 2008), which was recognized as a Stonewall Book Award Honor Book by the LGBT Round Table of the American Library Association. He co-edited (with Mae G. Henderson) Black Queer Studies—A Critical Anthology (Duke UP, 2005). He is also the editor of Cultural Struggles: Performance, Ethnography, Praxis by Dwight Conquergood (Michigan UP, 2013) and co-editor (with Ramón Rivera-Servera) of solo/black/woman: scripts, interviews, and essays (Northwestern UP, 2013). Johnson edited No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies (Duke UP, 2016) and he also co-edited Blacktino Queer Performance (with Ramón Rivera-Servera (Duke UP, 2016).

He is currently working on a creative nonfiction text titled Honeypot: Black Southern Women Who Love Women as well as Black. Queer. Southern. Women. — An Oral History. His essays have appeared in Text and Performance Quarterly, Callaloo, Theater Journal, Biography and the Journal of Homosexuality, among others. Johnson's performance work dovetails with his written work. His staged reading, "Pouring Tea: Black Gay Men of the South Tell Their Tales" is based on his book, Sweet Tea, and has toured to over 100 college campuses from 2006 to the present.

In 2009, he translated the staged reading into a full-length stage play, Sweet Tea—The Play , which was co-produced by About Face Theater and the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media at Columbia College, Chicago. The show premiered in April 2010 and a month run to rave reviews. He won a Black Theatre Alliance Award for Best Solo Performance for the show. In fall 2011, the show had a four-week run at Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia and a two-week run at the Durham Arts Council in Feb 2014. In 2010, he was awarded the Leslie Irene Coger Award for Outstanding Contributions to Performance by the National Communication Association, the Randy Majors Memorial Award for Outstanding Contributions to LGBT Scholarship in Communication, and inducted into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame. In 2014 he received the Rene Castillo Otto Award for Political Theater.

Kent R. Brooks

Kent R. Brooks has dual roles at Northwestern University as the director of Religious and Spiritual Life, where he works within a team dedicated to creating an inclusive space supporting the quest for meaning and purpose, and as an assistant professor of instruction in the Department of Performance Studies, where his work focuses on the language, execution, and social/historical implications of Black Gospel Music.

A seasoned church music director, worship leader, and educator, Kent is a BMI-affiliated composer who was twice the recipient of the Waljo Gospel Music Award. He was commissioned to compose and perform Heal the Land, the theme for the Raleigh-Durham area’s first observance of the Black Churches Week of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS. Another important commission had Kent assemble a 200-voice choir to perform, Let Your Dreams Take Flight, the theme for the Special Olympics World Games. His composition, Fanfare for Celina, opened the inaugural International Igor Stravinsky Festival at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his string quintet, A Prelude for Spirituals, debuted the same year. For four seasons, Kent performed with the Greensboro (North Carolina) Symphony Orchestra as chorus master and arranger for its annual community gospel concert. In his final year, the GSO performed Kent’s original gospel ballad, You Are My Everything. This same piece was presented at the new music seminar of the 2009 Gospel Music Workshop of America (GMWA) in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 2013, his setting of Psalm 117 was recorded by mass choir of the GMWA.

Kent debuted as a music director for the Springfield (Ohio) Arts Council for its 2013 summer presentation of Footloose: The Musical. To mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, he arranged an old battle song, Hoist Up The Flag, for a special concert performed by the Springfield Symphony Chorale and Orchestra.

Before coming to Northwestern, Kent was the director of music and worship for High Street United Methodist Church in Springfield, Ohio, and he taught voice, conducted the Imani Gospel Choir, and served as chapel organist at Wittenberg University. He transcribes and arranges for The Gospel Music Workshop of America, The National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses and the Hampton University Church Music Conference. He is a former member of the Springfield Symphony Chorale, the Dayton Chapter of the GMWA, and he served on the board of the directors for the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. He has worked with many notables in the gospel, jazz, and classical fields, and his work as a producer, composer and instrumentalist can be heard on various local, regional, and national recordings.

Kent is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he studied music composition and music theory with Drs. Ingrid Arauco and Allen Anderson. He also studied classical piano, jazz piano, and voice with Dr. Linda Holtzer, Dr. Scott Warner, and Professor Stafford Wing, respectively.

Austin Aldrich

Austin Aldrich is a 22-year-old jazz bass player from Ann Arbor, Michigan, now living in Chicago. A graduate of Northwestern University, he has become a rising voice in the Chicago scene performing in and around the city. Known for his soulful playing and consistent groove, Aldrich brings a unique blend of tradition and innovation to every performance. With a passion for both playing and teaching, he continues to make a mark on Chicago’s vibrant music community.

Angelena Browne

Angelena Browne is a singer, performer, and artist from New Jersey and Saint Kitts & Nevis who studies Acting, Music Theatre, and Marketing at Northwestern University. She is so excited to finish out her final quarter at NU performing in NYC, close to home, with Dean EPJ and other NU alums! Recent credits include For Colored Girls (Lady in Purple) at the Fleetwood Jourdain, and Lena in City Kid: The Musical at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. At the Northwestern Wirtz Center, she has performed in  Wink as Sofie, Sunday on the Rocks as Gayle, Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Play as Van Helsing, Sweat as Cynthia, and Violet as Lula Buffington. She deeply appreciates the support of her family, friends, and the incredible team that made this beautiful cabaret come together!

Claire Kwon

Claire Kwon is currently a standby at Maybe Happy Ending (Claire) and a proud NU ‘22 alum! Other Broadway credits: Almost Famous (Band-Aids/Swing); regional: Galileo (Berkeley Rep), Life After (Goodman); workshops: A Family Album (La Jolla Playhouse) Yoko's (O’Neill), Dive (Julia Riew) Rep: Soffer Ent. For my family <3 @clairekwon_

Lucy London

Lucy London is a yodeling performance artist, opera-singing stilt-walker, and folk musician from Petaluma, California. Her mission as an artist is to explore and practice ways of deepening connection between ourselves, each other, and the more-than-human world. Lucy graduated from Northwestern University in 2023, where she studied classical voice and performance studies. Since then, she has performed with international folk ensembles in Greensboro, North Carolina and Delhi, India.  She also co-composed and sang the leading role in Fox & Beggar Theatre Company’s Spring 2024 production, The Paper Operetta, which will tour in Fall 2025, with Lucy reprising her role. Since November, she has been touring the US as a solo musician and theatre-artist, creating her own solo performance, Grasping at Straws, which she performed at the SF Playground Theater's Solo Performance Festival. She is also working on releasing her first album with her yodeling duo, The Pinto Pals.

Jay Towns

Jay Towns (SoC '22) is a Chicago-based performer and creative entrepreneur. His acting credits include Good Enough: A Modern Musical (Prime Video), Chicago P.D. (NBC), Bleacher Report's Hero Ball (YouTube), and Bookstore: Snippets, which earned him a Best Actor nomination at the Chicago Indie Film Awards (2022). His original music was recognized as one of America's Favorites in NPR's Tiny Desk Contest (2021). Passionate about creativity in all its forms, Jay loves supporting innovative projects and empowering others to bring their visions to life. He is represented by Stewart Talent Chicago. Stay in touch on Instagram: @jaytowns

Sungbin Yun

Daniel Zitomer

Born in Goldens Bridge, New York, Daniel Zitomer is a senior at Northwestern University studying Environmental Science and Music. Daniel has been playing music since age 6, when he started lessons using his dad's drum set in the basement of his childhood home. He has been performing and teaching music lessons since early high school and, in 2021, released his debut indie rock album on Spotify and Apple music entitled "Mr. Strawberry." Daniel recently returned from a semester in Scotland where he regularly played with the Edinburgh University Jazz Society as the house drummer and, at Northwestern, Daniel has performed in the Jazz Small Ensembles, Jazz Orchestra, and several Wirtz production pit orchestras. He also plays frequently with Professor Kent Brooks for Northwestern Religious and Spiritual Life events. Beyond music, Daniel is an avid cyclist and enjoys visiting national parks across the country. Tonight is Daniel's third CommCabaret performance with Dean Johnson, following the first show in LA and second in Chicago.