Tonya Pinkins (born May 30, 1962) is an American actress and filmmaker. Her award-winning debut feature film RED PILL was an official selection at the 2021 Pan African Film Festival, won the Best Black Lives Matter Feature and Best First Feature at The Mykonos International Film Festival, Best First Feature at the Luléa Film Festival, and is nominated for awards in numerous festivals around the globe. Her web-series The RED PILLING of AMERICA can be heard on her podcast "You Can't Say That!" at BPN.fm/ycst She is known for her portrayal of Livia Frye on the soap opera All My Children and for her roles on Broadway. She has been nominated for three Tony Awards (winning one), and has won Obie, Lortel, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, AUDLECO, Garland, L.A. Drama Critics Circle, Clarence Derwent, and NAACP Theater Awards. She has been nominated for the Olivier, Helen Hayes, Noel, Joseph Jefferson, NAACP Image, Soap Opera Digest, and Ovation Awards. She won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Jelly's Last Jam. Early life and education Pinkins was born in Chicago, Illinois. Her father was a police officer and insurance salesman, and her mother is a former postal worker. She has two brothers, Eric and Thomas Swoope, and a sister Tamera Swoope. Pinkins was interested in the arts from a young age. At Whitney Young Magnet High School, she participated in the theater program and also studied acting at the Goodman Theatre Young People's Program. She attended Carnegie Mellon University's BFA Musical Theatre program, but was cast in Merrily We Roll Along and decided to pursue her career, instead. Pinkins later returned to college, earning an undergraduate degree in creative writing from Columbia College Chicago in 1996, followed by a year at California Western School of Law in San Diego. Career Pinkins won a Tony Award for her performance as Sweet Anita in Jelly's Last Jam. She was nominated for her roles in Play On! and in Caroline, or Change, where she played the title role. Her additional Broadway credits include Merrily We Roll Along, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, The Wild Party, House of Flowers, Radio Golf, A Time To Kill, and Holler If Ya Hear Me. Pinkins has performed in several off-Broadway productions, including the comic role of Mopsa, the Shepherdess, in The Winter's Tale produced by the Riverside Shakespeare Company at The Shakespeare Center