Damon Evans (actor)

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Damon Evans
Damon Evans as 'Sportin Life' in the hit Broadway play Porgy and Bess.
Born	Damon Evans November 24, 1949 (1949-11-24) (age 58) Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1970 - present

Damon Evans (born November 24, 1949, Baltimore, Maryland) is an American actor best known as one of the two actors who played Lionel Jefferson on The Jeffersons. He played the character from the 1975-76 season until early 1978). He also portrayed the young Alex Haley (ages 17-25) in the television miniseries Roots: The Next Generations.

Evans attended the Interlochen Academy on a Reader's Digest Scholarship. After graduation, he attended the Boston Conservatory of Music. While in Boston he appeared in productions of Two if by Sea, Hair (play), and The Corner (play) at the Theatre Company of Boston.

His off-Broadway credits include performances in A Day in the Life of Just About Everyone, Bury the Dead (for the Urban Arts Corp) and Love Me, Love My Children. He made his Broadway debut in The Me Nobody Knows. Other Broadway credits include Via Galactica and Lost in the Stars. He also toured as Judas and Jesus Christ in the authorized concert version of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. He appeared in the Tony-, Obie-, and Drama Desk Award-winning Broadway musical Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope.

In the late 1980s, Evans was a cast-member of Trevor Nunn's enormously successful, critically-acclaimed, Glyndebourne Festival production of the George Gershwin opera, "Porgy and Bess." In addition to Evans and other noted performers, this British production of Gershwin's 'American folk opera' featured the Glyndebourne Chorus and the London Philharmonic, both conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. Evans played Sportin' Life, a role originated by -- and originally written for -- famed 1920s and 1930s jazz bandleader and singer Cab Calloway.