NAACP Announces Open Voting for 49th NAACP Image Awards

Published

7 years ago

December 6, 2017

Don’t you just love the NAACP Awards? Black excellence celebrating Black excellence.

For the first time in its award show history, voting for the 49th NAACP Image Awards will be open to the public. Viewers will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite nominees in 36 different categories across film, television, and music.

In previous years, winners of the awards were selected only by members of the NAACP. This year, members of the public who are not NAACP members may cast votes by visiting the NAACP Image Awards online at Naacpimageawards.net.

“We are excited about the opportunity to open voting to the public,” said Derrick Johnson,NAACP President and CEO. “The Image Awards represents a universe of powerful stories and images, told in ways that express our beauty and make us proud.”

Since 1967, the NAACP Image Awards has been the preeminent multicultural awards show celebrating the accomplishments of people of color in the fields of television, music, literature and film, and has also honored individuals or groups who promote social justice through creative endeavors.

While, this year, voters do not have to be members of the Association, the NAACP encourages those who participate in this year’s voting process to become members. “To become a member of the NAACP is to join a community of individuals from all facets of life who like you are committed to the elimination of discrimination of any type and making our nation a better place for all people,” said Johnson.

The deadline to cast votes for the 49th NAACP Image Awards is December 15, 2017. Viewers can watch the winners claim their trophies just one month later. The Two-Hour LIVE TV special, hosted by Anthony Anderson, will air on TV One on Monday, January 15, 2018, at 9pm/8c, with a One-Hour Live Red Carpet Pre-Show at 8pm/7c. The evening will be the culmination of a day of volunteer service, citizen action, and celebration on the national holiday honoring the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

For all information and the latest news, please visit the official NAACP Image Awards website at:naacpimageawards.net.

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Caitlin Cook’s Musical Bathroom Odyssey Hits the UK

Published

1 week ago

May 9, 2025

Joni Jones

What do cowboy dicks, milk pistols, and public toilet walls have in common? They all find a strange kind of poetry in The Writing on the Stall, the wildly inventive musical comedy from US performer Caitlin Cook, landing in the UK this summer. After sold-out runs Off-Broadway, at Edinburgh Fringe, and in London, the New York Times Critic’s Pick returns for a short UK tour—playing Brighton’s Komedia (31 May & 1 June) and Soho Theatre, London (4–7 June).

Set entirely in a public bathroom, The Writing on the Stall is anything but private. In this whip-smart and wickedly funny one-woman musical, Cook dives into the scrawled messages and mysterious wisdom etched on cubicle walls and turns them into something bold, bizarre, and unexpectedly moving. The songs are catchy, the jokes are razor-sharp, and the show isn’t afraid to get its hands dirty—literally.

Armed with a guitar and a knack for digging gold out of the obscene, Cook crafts a genre-defying hour that’s part stand-up, part cabaret, and all catharsis. This is confessional comedy with clever hooks, pitch-perfect melodies, and enough surprises to keep your eyebrows permanently raised. Expect satire, sincerity, and some surreal props—rumour has it a pair of slingshotted knickers makes a cameo.

Caitlin Cook isn’t your average musical comic. She’s Oxford-educated, New York-hardened, and streaming in the tens of millions. She’s also collaborated with some of comedy’s finest, directed offbeat hits, and performs as one-half of the musical duo 2/3rds of a Threesome. With this new UK run, she’s not just touring a show—she’s building a movement that blurs the lines between comedy, theatre, and performance art.

If you missed her during her Edinburgh frenzy, this is your chance to catch the musical everyone’s been whispering about in pub toilets and shouting about in five-star reviews. You might come for the laughs, but you’ll stay for the songs that (fair warning) may live rent-free in your head for months.