More than 2,000 enthusiastic Barack Obama — and Oprah Winfrey — supporters packed the Kennedy Center Opera House on Monday for a star-studded special taping of the Oprah Winfrey Show.
The show, the first of two Winfrey is holding in Washington for the inauguration, featured performances by Seal, Faith Hill and the Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am, and appearances by such celebrities as Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore.
Winfrey, a Chicago resident and one of President-elect Barack Obama’s most high-profile supporters, was caught on camera as one of the thousands celebrating Obama’s election night victory in Grant Park in Chicago.
Monday’s mostly female crowd, already pumped up for today’s inauguration ceremonies, reached a fever pitch by the time the taping began at 1 p.m.
“I love this [show] so much,” said Francine Hippolyte, of New York.
The finale of the show was the performance of “America’s Song,” written by will.i.am and David Foster for Obama’s inauguration. Singers Mary J. Blige, Hill and Seal joined them singing, with U2’s Bono taking part on video.
Vice President-elect Joseph Biden Jr. and wife Jill appeared on the show as well.
“That was actually really touching. They seemed so genuine and sincere,” Hippolyte said.
Celebrities in audience included actresses Glenn Close and Angela Bassett, former Dallas Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith and dancer Debbie Allen.
Shortly before 11 a.m., Bassett entered the Kennedy Center through a side entrance, sending the hundreds of people waiting in lines into a frenzy.
After the doors opened at 11 a.m., hundreds hoping for leftover tickets waited — and hoped — to be ushered inside.
“We don’t care if we’re up in the nosebleeds. We just want to be inside,” said Kelley Fenwick of the District of Columbia, who came to the show with a group of women from Silver Spring media company Discovery Communications.
George Washington University student Dana Polonsky and her mother, J.J., also waited patiently in the standby line.
“I like Obama, but I love Oprah,” Dana said. “She’s an all-encompassing heroine for our time.”
Winfrey’s Wednesday show will be at the Art and Soul Restaurant in the Liaison Capitol Hill hotel, with guests including actor Forest Whitaker and singer Jon Bon Jovi. That show is also sold-out.
Also attending the show Monday was Ann Marlow, who flew into town from Jacksonville, Fla., on Sunday and headed straight for the concert on the National Mall.
“It was just electrifying. That was a once-in-a-lifetime concert,” she said. “I won’t see another one in my lifetime.”
Marlow is a Sunday school teacher from Mississippi whose father was a black farmer there. She plans to be in the crowd today watching Obama be sworn in as president. “If it’s knee-deep, it won’t matter,” she said. “It will never be the same.”
Fenwick also plans to fight the crowds to see Obama’s swearing-in firsthand.
“This is not a day when you want to say ‘I saw it on television.’ You could be in Alaska and see it on television.”
