Artists

An Augusta native, Russell Joel Brown is a graduate of Episcopal Day School and Morehouse College.  He has appeared on Broadway, in Taiwan, and on the first and second national tours of Disney’s The Lion King (in the role of Mufasa).  He also appeared on the first national tours of The Scarlet Pimpernel and Smokey Joe’s Café; the Japanese tour of Smokey Joe’s Café; and a European tour of Ain’t Misbehavin.’ 

As a bass soloist at New York’s famed Cathedral of St. John the Divine, he sang for the state funerals of Dizzy Gillespie, Arthur Ashe, Cab Calloway, and Thurgood Marshall.  Mr. Brown also won the “Best Actor in a Musical” Award from the Connecticut Critics’ Circle for his work as Jim in Big River at Goodspeed Opera House.

As creator, producer, and principal talent, Mr. Brown developed From Mozart to Motown:  An Evening with Joel Russell Brown.  This full-scale theatrical one-man show featured local area high school students in the production, and sold out a 900-seat theater five times.  He also developed Russell Joel Brown’s Project:  Inspire, an outreach program for middle and high school students, which was presented in over 280 schools between 2014 and 2017.  Mr. Brown combines his love for the theater and his love for children, teaching drama to 441 kindergarten-through-sixth-graders at a new charter school in the Augusta area, The School for Arts-Infused Learning.