An award-winning actress and educator, Phylicia Rashad, will address the Tuskegee University Class of 2015 during this year’s summer commencement, Friday, July 31.
The ceremony will be held at 10 a.m. CST in Tuskegee University Chapel. Rashad portrayed Claire Huxtable on “The Cosby Show”, a popular TV character whose appeal has earned her numerous honors and awards for more than two decades.
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”. She also has earned several accolades as a dramatic actress and director. She performed Violet Weston in “August Osage County”, Big Mama in Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Aunt Ester in August Wilson’s “Gem Of The Ocean,”(Tony Award nomination) and Queen Britannia in Shakespeare’s “Cymbeline” at Lincoln Center.
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 Tyler Perry’s “Good Deeds”, and starred in Perry’s highly acclaimed film version of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf.”
