2025 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration: Shonda Rhimes

Award-winning producer and Shondaland visionary Shonda Rhimes will be the guest of honor at Westport’s 19th annual Martin Luther King Jr. celebration. She will be in conversation with acclaimed novelist, playwright, and filmmaker Trey Ellis.

Rhimes is the CEO of Shondaland, the pioneering storytelling company; the creator, head writer, and executive producer of the hit shows Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Scandal, and Inventing Anna; and the producer of How to Get Away with M**der, Bridgerton, and many more.

This event also will be livestreamed. There is no fee for either the in-person or livestream option.

The annual Martin Luther King Jr. celebration is a partnership between the Library, TEAM Westport, the Westport Country Playhouse, and the Westport/Weston Clergy Association.

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The first woman to create three television dramas that have achieved the 100-episode milestone (Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Scandal), Rhimes has received numerous honors including a Golden Globe, the Peabody Award, and lifetime achievement awards from the Directors Guild of America, Writers Guild, and Producers Guild, plus several AFI Awards for Television Program of the Year and NAACP Image Awards.

In 2017, Rhimes was inducted into the Television Academy of Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. That same year, she left traditional TV and made the unprecedented move to Netflix, where Shondaland now produces content exclusively for the streaming media company.

In addition, Rhimes serves as creative director for Dove's #RealBeauty campaign, and she partnered with Pilot Pen G2 to award funds to community heroes. Her book, , published in 2015, was a New York Times best-seller, and her Masterclass.com course on TV writing is a top draw.

A Westport resident, Rhimes was the Library’s honoree at its 2022 celebration, and she returned to the Library’s Trefz Forum in 2023 to screen her documentary, .

Ellis is an American Book Award-winning novelist, two-time Emmy- and Peabody-winning filmmaker, NAACP Image award-winning playwright and essayist, and professor of professional practice at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. His lauded first novel, Platitudes, was reissued by Northeastern University Press along with his influential essay, “The New Black Aesthetic.” He also served as executive producer of King in the Wilderness, the 2018 Emmy Award-winning HBO documentary (Outstanding Historical Documentary) on the last three days of Dr. King’s life.

Past Martin Luther King Jr. celebration keynote speakers include National Book Award winner and MacArthur Fellow Ibram X. Kendi, Pulitzer Prize winner James Forman Jr., New York Times best-selling authors Heather McGhee and Layla Saad, Guggenheim Scholar Carol Anderson, American Book Award winner Tricia Rose, Quinnipiac Law School founder Marilyn Ford, author/artist/ filmmaker/multi-dimensional performance artist Junauda Petrus, and last year’s guest, former King speechwriter and advisor Dr. Clarence B. Jones, who helped Dr. King write the famed “I Have a Dream” speech.

Host or Publisher The Westport Library