Age: 31
female
Gabby Soleil had a lucky break when she was noticed by a talent manager on a street in Beverly Hills, California. In no time, she was appearing in television commercials, starting with a spot for the insurance company Met Life. The young actress received her Screen Actors Guild card at only four years old. At six, in 2001, she acted in her first role in the pilot of the short-lived sitcom "Danny," about a separated father raising two teenagers. She quickly followed up that appearance the same year with a recurring part in the final season of another sitcom, "The Hughleys," a vehicle for comedian D.L. Hughley. She played Adriana, daughter of Milsap, the best friend of the title characters, through three episodes of the program. Her longest running on-screen character came in 2002, when she landed the role of the young version of Essence Atkins's character, Deirdre Chantal "Dee Dee" Thorne, Esq., on "Half & Half," a sitcom about two half-sisters, estranged in their youth, who meet again as adults. She went on to play Young Dee Dee in eight episodes until 2006. In 2005, she began voice acting when she took on the role of Jazmine Dubois, a girl who lives across the street from the main characters in the successful animated social satire "The Boondocks," based on the comic strip by Aaron McGruder.
New York City, 1928. RUBY SALT is the most celebrated jazz vocalist in Harlem — and she has just received a letter from the Mississippi town she fled at 18, telling her that the man who raped her at 14 is now running for state Senate. SALT & LIGHTNING tracks Ruby over seven weeks: her decision about whether to return and testify, the friendships that sustain her, the lover she has been hiding, and the music she pours all of it into. Intimate and devastating, the show has a 12-piece live jazz orchestra onstage throughout.
