BOOKED for the evening, The Westport Library’s signature fundraising event, will celebrate its 27th edition this fall by welcoming Emmy Award-winning director, choreographer, producer, actress, educator, and United States Cultural Ambassador of Dance Debbie Allen.
Allen will be honored in the Library’s Trefz Forum on Wednesday, October 28.
Tickets for the event will go on sale to the public on Tuesday, August 18, at 10 am. Sponsorship opportunities are available now on the BOOKED for the evening page or by contacting Development Director Robin Powell at [email protected].
"Debbie Allen has done something rare. She hasn't just excelled across disciplines — she has used every one of them in service of something larger," said Bill Harmer, the Library’s executive director. "Throughout her career, she has consistently asked what art can do for a community and for a culture. We couldn’t be more delighted to honor her and welcome her to the vibrant arts community of Westport."
BOOKED for the evening annually honors an individual whose work reflects the mission and vision of the Library: to nurture a love of learning and to enhance our understanding of the world.
Previous award recipients include 2025 guest of honor Sarah Jessica Parker, as well as luminaries such as Billie Jean King, Tom Brokaw, E.L. Doctorow, Calvin Trillin, Wendy Wasserstein, Pete Hamill, Martin Scorsese, Arthur Mitchell, Doris Kearns Goodwin, David Halberstam, Oscar Hijuelos, Adam Gopnik, Will Shortz, Patti Smith, Barry Levinson, Jon Meacham, Nile Rodgers, Lynsey Addario, Ron Chernow, Alan Alda, Justin Paul, Frederic Chiu, Itzhak Perlman, Shonda Rhimes, and Laura Linney.
A force in American arts and entertainment for more than three decades, Allen is perhaps best known to television audiences as dance instructor Lydia Grant in the landmark 1982 series Fame — a role she paired with duties as the show's principal choreographer. That same creative authority has since carried her across virtually every tier of American cultural life.
Her career's full scope has been recognized with three Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe, five NAACP Image Awards, a Drama Desk Award, the first-ever Astaire Award for Best Dancer, four honorary doctorates, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She has choreographed the Academy Awards ten times, directed and produced episodes of Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, Empire, Insecure, Jane the Virgin, and A Different World, and served as the creative force behind Steven Spielberg's Oscar-nominated Amistad.
Appointed by President George W. Bush as a United States Cultural Ambassador of Dance, Allen has spent more than 15 years as an artist-in-residence at the Kennedy Center, where she has written and directed original productions including Pepito's Story, Brothers of the Knight, Dreams, Alex in Wonderland, and Freeze Frame... Stop the Madness.
Her commitment to the next generation of artists is the subject of the Netflix documentary Dance Dreams: Hot Chocolate Nutcracker, and in 2001 she and her husband, former NBA All-Star Norman Nixon, founded the nonprofit Debbie Allen Dance Academy in Los Angeles — providing world-class arts training to young people who might not otherwise have access to it.
