Phylicia Rashad visits Conversations

March 30, 2011

Monday, March 28 saw a full house of actors participating in a truly distinguished evening, one in which multi-award winning Phylicia Rashad shared terrific insights with her fellow SAG members. Conversations with Phylicia Rashad, A Woman of Distinction: Her Story, was presented by the SAG National Women’s Committee and the SAG Foundation in honor of Women’s History Month. The event took place at the SAG Foundation Actors Center and was shared with online participants through the Foundation’s Live Stream technology.

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The first African-American actor to receive a Tony award for Best Actress in a Play (for 2004’s revival of Raisin in the Sun), the elegant and warm Phylicia Rashad detailed the journey, drive and lessons learned during a career which spans music, theatre, film and television – including her eight years as Clair Huxtable on the groundbreaking series The Cosby Show.

Despite already being a famous face and name after her work on Cosby, Rashad once said that for a year after the series’ mega-successful run, she “couldn’t buy a job.”

“It was very true,” she elaborated at Conversations. “My mother says that there must be reciprocity in all things. We’re of a mind that we’re just going to keep going, going, going… but even the ocean doesn’t work that way.”

Ever moving forward, Ms. Rashad has recently made her Los Angeles directorial debut with the Ebony Repertory Theatre’s production of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun.

Moderator Hattie Winston (pictured above, at right, with Ms. Rashad) brought her own intelligent, involving and warm presence to the evening as well. A groundbreaker herself, Winston is one of the founding members of the historic Negro Ensemble Company, as well as a veteran of the long-running PBS series Electric Company and the hit sitcom Becker.