Emmy winning and Oscar nominated actress Cicely Tyson will be on hand as the new Cicely L. Tyson Community School of Performing and Fine Arts (CTS) opens on October 24 in East Orange, NJ. Joining her to celebrate will be a number of celebrity guests including Oprah Winfrey , Angela Bassett, Courtney B. Vance, NJ Governor Jon Corzine, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, actor Terrence Howard, and Ambassador Andrew Young just to name a few. CNN's Soledad O'Brien will be the evening's mistress of ceremonies while BeBe Winans and harpist Jeff Majors will perform.

The Cicely L. Tyson Community School of Performing and Fine Arts provides performing and fine arts for 1,300 pre-kindergarten, middle and high school students in the East Orange section of New Jersey. The performing fine arts and academic curricula have been designed so that students can be artistically creative in a field of their choosing while academically stimulated. Tyson plans to be actively involved in the school, which has been under construction for the last seven years.

The community is also a part of this shared experience as they are free to use the facility after school hours. There will be a library, media centers, gymnasiums, cafeterias, music and art rooms and health and dental clinics open to them.

"These children have God-given artistic talents that we can now properly nurture and train," said Tyson. "It is my hope that we will provide them with a foundation that will allow them to become productive members of the creative class and that their works will tell our stories for generations to come. I am pleased that the City of East Orange has chosen to invest in our collective cultural future."-WLW