Next show: Sunday 3/18 with Carol Maillard of Sweet Honey in the Rock

This installment will feature singer, actress and one of the founding members for the vocal ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock: Carol Maillard. It will air on Sunday March 18 2012 at 11:00pm – Monday at 1:00am on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org.

Carol Maillard was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although she originally attended Catholic University of America on scholarship as a Violin Performance major, she soon began writing music and performing with the Drama Department and eventually changed her major to Theater.

This passion for the stage brought her to the D.C. Black Repertory Company and the beginnings of the vocal ensemble that was to become Sweet Honey In The Rock founded by Bernice Johnson Reagon in 1973 (with Mie, Carol Maillard and Louise Robinson). Carol is an accomplished actress and has performed in film, television and on stage. Her theater credits encompass a wide range of styles from musical comedy and revues to drama and experimental. She has performed on and off Broadway (“Eubie,” “Don’t Get God Started,” “Comin’ Uptown,” “Home,” “It’s So Nice To Be Civilized,” “Beehive,” “Forever My Darling”); with the Negro Ensemble Company (“Home,” “Zooman and the Sign,” “Colored Peoples Time,” “The Great Mac Daddy”); and the New York Shakespeare Festival (“Spunk,” “Caucasian Chalk Circle,” “Under Fire,” “A Photograph…”); also at the Actors Studio (“Hunter”). She can be seen in the feature films “Beloved” and “Thirty Years to Life.” On television, Carol has appeared in “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide” and “Halleluiah!” ( PBS) ; “Law and Order: SVU” and “Law and Order.”

As a member of Sweet Honey in the Rock, her powerful rendition of Motherless Child arranged for Sweet Honey, is featured in the motion picture, “The Visit” and the Dorothy Height documentary, “We Are Not Vanishing.” Carol was Conceptual Producer for the documentary film on PBS’ American Masters 2005 – “Sweet Honey in the Rock: Raise Your Voice!” Produced and directed by Stanley Nelson (Firelightmedia Films), the film chronicled Sweet Honey’s 30th Anniversary year (2003).

As a vocalist, she has had the privilege to record with Horace Silver, Betty Buckley, and the SYDA Foundations inspirational recording “Sounds of Light.”

(Biography from the Sweet Honey in the Rock website)