16978006:Cobb Life October 2012 dummied to trim_new size
9/23/2012
11:55 PM
Page 46
Sean Combs and Kenny Leon on the set of A Raisin in the Sun .
At Clark, Leon earned an undergraduate degree in political science and set his sights on attending law school in California. Once on the West Coast, however, this college theatre minor took center stage when he began working on television commercials. It wasn’t long before Leon was back in metro Atlanta and working with the Academy of Music & Theatre. At the Academy, he worked on theatre projects during the day and spent evenings giving back to the local community through the arts. “We did legitimate theatre during the day,” Leon said. “At night we would do things in prisons or schools or with homeless people and give them the money we made from the performances. Politics, community and the arts have always been a part of my life and that’s reflected in the projects I choose to do.” After nearly a decade with the Academy of Music & Theatre, Leon was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. “I had applied to the Alliance Theatre around that time because there wasn’t any diversity there,” he said.
46 Cobb Life
October 2012