Volume 7, Number 4, 1998


A roof raiser

A knockout performance!" "Powerful and evocative." Rave reviews greeted Yvette Freeman, AS '72, who portrayed music legend Dinah Washington in Dinah Was. A surprise off-Broadway hit, the musical biography captured the spirit of the late, great jazz singer, the first African-American artist to crash the all-white pop charts in 1959. Freeman, who has received an OBIE award for her role, was on stage alone for two hours, acting, singing and sometimes dancing. In an Associated Press interview, Freeman said the role was a dream of hers for about 10 years. "My father, (Charles Freeman of Wilmington, Del.) is a jazz piano player, so I heard Dinah's music at home. And I just liked the woman." Also known as nurse Haleh Adams in NBC's ER and as the by-the-rules office manager Evelyn Smalley in the Fred Savage sitcom Working, Freeman used the TV off-season to appear in Dinah Was.