André De Shields
speaker
298 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 21 Jul
André De Shields’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
when people would ask me, Andre, what are you going to do when you grow up?
And my response was, I'm going to be a star.
And they looked at me as if I had two heads.
And then I managed to leave the neighborhood and be the first of that community to attend college.
And they started to believe that I was a miracle maker.
And while I was a junior in college, the head of the drama department came to me and said, are you in the drama department?
I said, no, I'm studying English.
Why?
Do you want to know?
He said, well, I think this campus would benefit from a production of Lorraine Hansberry's Raisin in the Sun, but there aren't enough black students there.
let alone in the drama department, for me to do this.
But I can do it by inviting people from the town to join us.
I just can't find the boy to play Walter Lee younger, and I would like you to do that.
Now, all my young life, I kept close to my vest that I wanted to be an actor.
And here was the blessing being offered to me.
So members of my family took the bus all the way out to Wilmington, Ohio.
Not the entire family, but enough of the family to see me, at the age of 19, perform as Walter Lee Younger in A Raisin in the Sun.
And that's when it happened.
Wow, Andre!
You really have talent.
Showing 121–140 of 298 · page 7 of 15
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