Ellis Island: The Dream of America
Ellis Island: The Dream of America is a work for actors and orchestra with projected images by American composer Peter Boyer, composed in 2001-02, commissioned by the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts in Hartford, Connecticut. The work combines first-person narrations of seven immigrants who entered the United States through Ellis Island between 1910 and 1940, selected by Boyer from the Ellis Island Oral History Project, with Boyer’s original orchestral music. The work has received over 170 performances by more than 75 orchestras. A recording of the work released on the Naxos record label was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition in the 48th annual Grammy Awards. In April 2017, performances by Pacific Symphony of "Ellis Island: The Dream of America" were filmed for broadcast on PBS’ "Great Performances" series in the 2017-18 broadcast season.
Evelyn Ellis
Ellis directed "Horse Play" in 1937 and then put on the play "Little Woman" in 1938 with the junior department at the Negro Little Theatre. Her most notable work as a director as well as an actress is in the all-black production of "Tobacco Road" in 1950. She played the role of a starving mother which the "New York Times" singled out as “truthful elements that left a lasting impression”. Through her directing of a youth play and her creation of the drama school, Ellis was active in getting younger kids interested in the art of drama.Ellis made her last Broadway appearance in 1953 and ended her acting career in 1955 with her final film "Interrupted Melody". Two years later, she died from a heart ailment on June 5, 1958, at the age of 64. She was hospitalized from December 1957 until her death at the Variety Club’s Will Rogers Memorial Hospital in Saranac Lake, NY.