Becoming Sidney

Submitted By: Ken Gregory

A young Sidney Poitier has migrated to post World War II New York City from the Bahamas, where he is working as a dishwasher and discovers an Ad in the newspaper for actors to audition for a fledgling, yet promising theatre company for African American actors called the American Negro Theatre. Despite some lesser known challenges, Sidney goes to the audition, where he soon discovers that he’s completely unprepared and is thrown out of the audition for lying about his credentials. Yet his passion to be more than a dishwasher doesn’t go unnoticed; Howard Katz is an elderly Jewish waiter working at the same restaurant, sees something special in Sidney and offers his guidance, and becomes an unexpected mentor.