September 20, 2025 at 8:00PM

This performance is 90 minutes with no intermission.

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Curator of the blackbox series The Reverend Shawn Amos opens the 2025/26 Season by inviting everyone onto the dance floor! Join the joyful bluesman for a night of classic 1960s dance and rhythm & blues, plus favorites from his own catalogue—and as always, he has a few festive surprises waiting. If you have ever seen The Rev perform, you know that no two performances are alike—and you are guaranteed to be dancing.

Wildfire Arts Entertainment returns to The Plaza with more surprises in store. If you were here in March for the Beaucoup Brass Band’s New Orleans–style performance, you’ll recall how Wildfire’s jugglers and contortionists brought the celebration to life. This time, they’ll join forces with The Rev to launch the season in spectacular fashion.

To watch the video with audio descriptions click here. 

Celebrated recording artist and NAACP Image Award-winning author Shawn Amos, best known as joyful bluesman The Reverend Shawn Amos is an astute storyteller of multiple mediums. He first honed these skills—and a restless entrepreneurial spirit— as a child of 1970s Hollywood, helping his father Wally “Famous” Amos launch a now-iconic cookie brand on then-gritty Sunset Boulevard.  

Following a stint at NYU film school, Shawn wrote scripts for A & M films by day, recording and performing original music focusing on race and identity by night. As a record company executive, he conceived and produced multiple releases for both Rhino Entertainment and Shout! Factory, including Grammy-nominated box set Rhapsodies in Black: Music & Words From the Harlem Renaissance and Q: The Musical Biography of Quincy Jones. The legendary Jones subsequently enlisted Shawn to oversee his Listen Up Foundation.

His ninth studio album, The Reverend Shawn Amos Dance Party, an album of originals and 1960s dance classics, is forthcoming. He is executive producer of the animated series, Cookies & Milk (based upon his debut book), in development at Disney, and author of middle-grade novel, Franklin and the Fabulous 5ive (2026 publication). Blackbox, the jazz and blues series he curates for Santa Monica performing arts center BroadStage, is entering its seventh year.

Jazz & Blues Sponsor:

Richard and Lisa Kendall

blackbox Sponsor:

Ann Petersen and Leslie Pam

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