Avery Brooks
Actor, Director, Musician, Teacher

Avery Brooks has appeared on stage and the screen from New York to Los Angeles. He played the lead role in Shakespeare’s Othello at Rutgers and at the Folger Shakespeare Theater in Washington, D.C.

Since 1982, he has performed to critical acclaim the title role in the Phillip Hayes Dean play Paul Robeson. Mr. Brooks has worked extensively with the Smithsonian Institution’s program in Black American culture, and was nominated for an American Cable Entertainment (ACE) Award for his performance in Showtime’s television production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. He has performed with the New York Shakespeare Festival, and he sang the title role in the American Musical Theater Festival production of the Anthony Davis opera X: The Life and Times of Malcom X. He has hosted several documentaries, and he starred as television’s Hawk on Spencer For Hire and A Man Called Hawk, which he also produced. He starred as Captain Sisko in the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

The first African-American M.F.A. graduate in acting and directing at Rutgers, Mr. Brooks is a tenured professor of theater at Mason Gross School of the Arts. His recent movies include the 1998 Academy Award nominated American History X, and the 2001 action-adventure film 15 Minutes, with Robert De Niro.