Friedman-Abeles/New York Public Library

Today marks the 62nd anniversary of the Broadway debut of Lorraine Hansberry’s landmark play A Raisin In the Sun. It was on this date that history was made as Hansberry was the first African American woman to have her play produced and performed on Broadway; it was also the first Broadway play to be directed by a Black person (Lloyd Richards). It opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theater (and later moved to the Belasco Theater) on March 11, 1959, and played for a total of 530 performances before closing on June 25, 1960.

The play centers around the Youngers: a family of five that lives in a 2-bedroom apartment on the Southside of Chicago. Set to the backdrop of post-WWII, the family’s pursuit of success is driven by the idealization of the American dream; often thwarted by the consequential effects of racism, cultural appropriation and identity, and generational differences. Hansberry gives the reader, and oftentimes the performer, an eye-opening look into the Black experience in America with questions of freedom – educational and economic – ruling the conversation.

The play echoes many of the circumstances and accounts of the playwright’s family from the 1940 Supreme Court case of Hansberry v. Lee, which gave them a voice in the judicial system to fight against racial discrimination in the housing market.  Inspired by that, she wrote parts of her truth through the language of a family who only wanted their slice of the American pie; a slice that would feed their spirits in a world that starved them of their identity. 

A Raisin In the Sun has seen a long history on Broadway and around the world. After the original production was nominated in 1960 for four Tony Awards, the story became a universal tale of hope and success. The original production starred Hollywood leading man Sidney Poitier (later succeeded by Ossie Davis), Ruby Dee, Claudia McNeil, Diana Sands, Louis Gossett, Ivan Dixon, Lonne Elder III, John Fiedler, Glynn Turman, and Ed Hall. Multiple iterations of Hansberry’s classic have graced the stage and screen over the last 62 years: 

1961 film starring the original Broadway cast. 

Raisin (a musical based on A Raisin In the Sun) debuted on Broadway in 1973. The book was written by Hansberry’s former husband and starred Joe Morton, Debbie Allen, Virginia Capers (Tony winner for Lead Actress in a Musical), Ernestine Jackson, and Ralph Carter. It also won the Tony Award for Best Musical. 

1989 tv film starring Danny Glover and Esther Rolle.

2004 Broadway revival starring Sean Combs, Audra McDonald (Tony winner for Best Featured Actress in a Play), Sanaa Lathan, and Phylicia Rashad (Tony winner for Best Actress in a Play; also the first Black woman to win this award).

2008 tv movie event starring many of the leads of the 2004 Broadway revival. 

2014 Broadway revival at the Ethel Barrymore Theater (where it originally played in 1959) starring Denzel Washington, Sophie Okonedo (Tony winner for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play), Anika Noni Rose, and LaTanya Richardson Jackson. The production also won the Tonys for Best Revival of a Play and Best Direction for Kenny Leon (who also directed the 2008 tv movie). 

The title was inspired by the Langston Hughes poem “Harlem,” which starts out with “what happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” It is the hope in the midst of suffering and the strength in the midst of pain that makes this classic theatre work a blessing to the arts community.

In honor of Women’s History Month, Broadway Black honors Lorraine Hansberry. Your dream is a gift to us all.

The post A Dream Realized: On This Day In Black Theatre History A Raisin In the Sun Debuts on Broadway appeared first on Broadway Black.

So you want to meet the Wizard? 

Well, André De Shields’ sass, style, and excellence in theatre will be honored at the 27th Annual Awards for Excellence in the Arts on November 9, 2015 at DePaul University.

Known as a man who honored his parents’ deferred dreams of being entertainers by forging his own path to Broadway, André De Shields did more than just become an entertainer— he became a monument of creativity, spreading his talents to acting, directing, choreography and education. 

De Shields has been in the business for over forty-six years. He began his professional career in the 1969 Chicago production of Hair. He went on to join the Civic Opera House’s company of The Me Nobody Knows at the Civic Opera House. Finally, he became a member of The Organic Theatre Company’s Warp! as Xander the Unconquerable, Ruler of the Sixth Dimension.

Most notably, De Shields is known for originating the titular role of The Wiz on Broadway and for his work in Ain’t Misbehavin’, Play On! and The Full Monty. 

He is a two-time Tony Award nominee, Emmy Award winner, and a recipient of the Village Voice OBIE Award. Mr. De Shields is currently rehearsing GOTTA DANCE, the new Broadway-bound musical about professional basketball’s first ever 60-and-older dance team.

The 27th Annual Awards for Excellence in the Arts honors  artists and visionaries who have paved the way and left a legacy in the arts. All proceeds from the event directly benefit The Theatre School Scholarship Fund, supporting students from all over the nation to train at the school.

The post André De Shields Awarded for Excellence in the Arts appeared first on Broadway Black.

Our city has a long and powerful history, brimming with dedicated New Yorkers who have fought to improve their communities in countless ways – from public service to community activism to the arts. It is essential that we commemorate those who have built up our past as we work to build a better future for our city. This legislation ensures that we remain connected to our history and to the important values embodied by these individuals.

Leonard Harper can correctly be described as multifaceted. Over the span of the Harlem Renaissance, he left his mark as  a dancer, choreographer, producer, and studio owner. 

Harper and his wife, Osceloa Banks, put together and performed in his first big revue, Plantation Days, at Layfatte Theatre in Harlem in 1922. As a result, Harper started producing. He is credited with over 2,000 shows on stage and screen. He is associated with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Fred Astaire, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Mae West, Josephine Baker, Lena Horne and the Marx Brothers. Harper also brought his talents to the nightlife scene. He was instrumental in the Cotton Club’s opening, which featured two of his revues, and regularly brought talent to Connie’s Inn, The Kentucky Club, and The Apollo Theatre.

On the international stage, Harper is known as the “father of cabaret.” He created “The Harpettes” and performed with them internationally in cabaret, vaudeville, and medicine style shows. Always managing to enrich the lives of others, Harper went on to own a dance studio in Times Square where Black dancers became teachers and shared their culture and dances with white dancers.

Harper’s biggest Broadway contribution was the 1929 staging of Hot Chocolates, which etched “Black and Blue” and “Ain’t Misbehavin” into the collection of Broadway classics. 

Council Member Inez Dickens remembers Harper fondly, stating:

His work left everlasting impressions and opened a door of opportunities for others to be involved in the motion picture industry because of his historic performances and productions that showcased Black culture.

Harper died at 44 in 1943. He was recently honored with a  2015 NAACP History Makers Award. 

The street naming will occur Saturday, October 10, at 2pm.

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Blackface is when actors, often not of color, paint their faces darker in order to portray a Black person. This form of makeup was used in “minstrelsy,” in which white actors and actresses would pretend to be Black people or, more accurately, how they believed Black people to be. Blackface and minstrelsy gained popularity in the nineteenth century by way of actor Thomas D. Rice, who toured the U.S. with the stage name, “Daddy Jim Crow.” His name later became associated with the racism and segregation that was affecting individuals in the South. A video of one of his performances can be seen here.

Today, if blackface is used, it is the subject of controversy; however, that doesn’t mean that it is completely eradicated. In the 2008 movie, “Tropic Thunder,” white actor Robert Downey, Jr. portrays a Black man. The comedy was lauded for its hilarity and Downey was even nominated for an Academy Award. That leads one to wonder if a Black man playing the same role would have received the same critical acclaim. Additionally, actress and dancer, Julianne Hough, dressed as “Orange Is The New Black’s” Crazy Eyes (portrayed by the fabulous Uzo Aduba) as a Halloween costume. The actress later apologized on Twitter for her blunder, but the damage was already done.

Eric Lott at PBS writes that the legacy of blackface is the stereotypes set in the past are still affecting the mindset of white people’s perception of Black people today. This phenomenon affects Black people because the tropes associated with blackface are harmful. Appropriation of someone’s color or culture is not a form of appreciation. Appreciation is not embodying someone and taking over; it is respecting them for who they are.

The post Appropriation, Not Appreciation: The History of Blackface appeared first on Broadway Black.

Douglas Turner Ward, who understudied Sidney Poitier in the historical play and took over the role as Walter Lee Younger in the show’s national tour, penned a manifesto published in The New York Times that addressed the color barriers in American theatre. His opinion piece, titled “American Theatre: For Whites Only,” published just a few years after the Supreme Court declared segregation of public schools and thereby public facilities, unconstitutional– shed light on the non-existent space for African-American theatre artists.  

A theatre evolving not out of negative need, but positive potential; better equipped to employ existing talents and spur the development of future ones. A theatre whose justification is not the gap it fills, but the achievement it aspires towards— no less high than any other comparable theatre company of present or past world fame.

The article caught the attention of W. McNeil Lowery at the Ford Foundation, who encouraged Ward to apply for a grant to build the type of theatre he described in his essay. Ward was awarded $434,000 and along with fellow castmate, Robert Hook and theatre manager Gerald Krone the Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) was founded in the summer of 1967. Ward and other black writers would now have a platform to showcase their work and young black actors, like the ones who worked with Hooks, were given the opportunity to play complex characters with depth and originality.   

The inaugural season opened with Peter Weiss’ Song of the Lusitanian Bogey in 1968. NEC received criticism on both sides of the racial spectrum. Members of the black community were critical of the NEC employing white staff, playwrights, and funders. NEC continued to serve the African-American theatre talent pool, mentoring the likes of Louis Gossett Jr., Sherman Hemsley, Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Laurence Fishburne, Phylicia Rashad, Delroy Lindo and Angela Bassett.

Brent Jennings, Steven Anthony Jones, Eugene Lee, Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, James Pickens and Peter Friedman in the 1981 Negro Ensemble Company production of A Soldier’s Play.

Even though the NEC broke barriers for many Black actors, directors and playwrights, box-office sales suffered. In the 1972-73 season the resident company was disbanded and major cut-backs of training programs, salaries and productions occurred. The NEC would now only produce one play a year.

In 1974 NEC made its Broadway debut with The River Niger by Joseph Walker that took home a Tony Award for Best Play and went on a national tour. The success of The River Niger bought the NEC more time, and in 1981 A Soldier’s Play by Charles Fuller won the Outer Critics’ Circle Best Off-Broadway Play, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play, the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was later turned into a three-time Academy Award nominated movie.

Ward left the company in 2002. O.L. Duke took his place from 2002-2004 and now Charles Weldon stands at the helm of the historic landmark. Weldon expanded the theatre’s education programs by offering video production, commercial theatre management, producing, advertising and public school training. NEC currently offers workshops in basic acting, actors intensive, playwriting, dance and movement and more.
In January 2015 Weldon was quoted in an article published in Newsweek explaining why he continues to persevere and maintain the company. For him, it means that he gets “to hold on to history. A history that was great. A history that so many great people were a part of.”

The post The Negro Ensemble Company Blazed Trails for Black Theatre appeared first on Broadway Black.

Black theatre. A space of inspired creativity, performance art and social commentary on the lives of everyday people. As the curtains open and our stories unfold, we are transported to a place where our dreams and realities intermingle with song, dance and powerful dialogue. When the curtains close and the theatre goes dark, we are left with emotions, memories, images and often quotes that reflect the highs and lows of African American existence.

Let’s take a moment and revisit, in no particular order, ten inspirational quotes from some of our favorite pieces.

1. On loving one another:

“There is always something left to love. And if you ain’t learned that, you ain’t learned nothing.” – Loraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun

2. Beginning a journey into the unknown:

“Count your blessings, cut your losses and follow the yellow brick road.” –The Wiz

3. Because sometimes your dreams are right there in front of you:

“Ev’ry man has his own special dream. And your dream’s just about to come true. Life’s not as bad as it may seem, if you open your eyes to what’s in front of you!” –Dreamgirls

4. On choices:

“When the sins of our fathers visit us, we do not have to play host. We can banish them with forgiveness as God, in His Largeness and Laws.” ― August Wilson, Fences

5. On our own divinity:

“I am an expression of the divine, just like a peach is, just like a fish is. I have a right to be this way…I can’t apologize for that, nor can I change it, nor do I want to… We will never have to be other than who we are in order to be successful…We realize that we are as ourselves unlimited and our experiences valid. It is for the rest of the world to recognize this, if they choose.” – Alice Walker, The Color Purple

6. On relaxing and enjoying the moment:

“Summertime, and the living is easy.” –Porgy and Bess

7. On learning to love yourself:

“I found god in myself and I loved her. I loved her fiercely” –Ntozake Shange, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf

8. On personal empowerment and survival:

“I’m poor, black; I may even be ugly. But dear God! I’m here! I’m here! –Alice Walker, The Color Purple

9. On getting yourself together to fulfill your potential:

“Look inside yourself, Simba. You are more than you have become; take your place in the circle of life.” –The Lion King

10. On being okay with starting over:

“I ain’t never found no place for me to fit. Seem like all I do is start over. It ain’t nothing to find no starting place in the world. You just start from where you find yourself.” ― August Wilson, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

 

Now, tell us what are some of your favorite inspirational quotes from African American theatre? Drop your favorites in the comments!

The post Inspirational Quotes For The Black Theatre Lover appeared first on Broadway Black.

As Broadway prepares for the return of The Color Purple this fall, let’s look back at the history of this incredible American story and its impact over the years.

The Color Purple is a novel written by Alice Walker. Born in 1944 to parents who were Georgia sharecroppers, Walker was riveted by stories from her parents, grandparents, and extended family about their youth and childhood experiences. However, she did not see any of these types of stories represented in literature at the time. Walker wanted to write a novel describing the struggles of 3 generations of Georgia sharecroppers and was determined to have their stories heard in their speech. In a recent Huffington Post interview, Walker says, “What I would like people to understand when they read The Color Purple, is that there are all these terrible things that can actually happen to us, and yet life is so incredibly magical and abundant and present that we can still be very happy.”

The novel was published in 1982 and became an international best seller with over 5 million copies sold. The following year, it won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. This reception garnered the attention of filmmaker Steven Spielberg who met with Walker with the hope of adapting her novel into a film. In 1985, The Color Purple premiered in movie theaters and starred Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, and introduced film audiences to Whoopi Goldberg as ‘Celie’. The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, but won none- however, it has stood the test of time becoming one of the most iconic films in the American cinema.

Nearly 20 years after the novel was published, Walker was approached by producer Scott Sanders about adapting her book into a Broadway musical. Walker was initially reluctant to this idea and took some convincing from Sanders that it could be an amazing concept. After some time, she gave her consent and it took almost 2 years to assemble a creative team. It was important to Sanders that this team included artists of color and female artists as it would best capture this story. Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Marsha Norman (‘night, Mother) penned the book for the show, with music and lyrics by Stephen Bray, Allee Wills and Brenda Russell; Gary Griffin signed on as director with Donald Byrd choreographing; music director extraordinaire Linda Twine also joined the creative team. The production gained another producer in Quincy Jones who composed the music for the 1985 film, and had its out-of-town tryout in 2004 at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. The following year, Oprah Winfrey joined the production team and in 2005, Oprah Winfrey Presents: The Color Purple debuted on Broadway. The production earned 10 Tony nominations in 2006 and LaChanze won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical for her portayal of ‘Celie’.

In addition to its 3-year Broadway run, The Color Purple went on to 3 national tours, several regional productions, and in 2013- John Doyle directed the London production at the Meiner Chocolate Factory starring Cynthia Erivo as ‘Celie’. It is this production that is inspiring the upcoming Broadway revival this fall with Erivo reprising her role and joined by Jennifer Hudson as ‘Shug’ and Danielle Brooks as ‘Sophia’.
Now that we are all caught up on the extensive history of this phenomenal piece, be sure to get your tickets to The Color Purple which begins previews November 10! Visit www.colorpurple.com for more details.

Can’t wait til November? Check out the production trailer here

The post From A Book To Broadway: The Journey of The Color Purple appeared first on Broadway Black.

The exhibition at New York Public Library for the Performing Arts will include video of his ballets, his paintings, recordings of his early steel band ensemble, Geoffrey Holder and His Trinidad Hummingbirds, as well as props from some of his movies, including his work as the bodyguard Punjab in “Annie”.  Also on view will be his famous interpretation of Dorothy’s dress from The Wiz; not only did Holder direct the musical, he also designed costumes for the production, and became the first Black man to win a Tony award in both those categories.

In addition, on August 1, Lincoln Center’s “Out of Doors Festival” will dedicate an afternoon to Holder, and will include a screening of the 2009 documentary “Carmen & Geoffrey”, which documented his nearly 60-year marriage to Carmen de Lavallade (an accomplished dancer in her own right), that he described as his muse.

Holder contributed to the repertory of the Alvin Ailey Dance Company and Dance Theatre of Harlem; Judith Jamison, Artistic Director Emerita of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, said, “They don’t make artists like him anymore. He never stopped creating, not for a moment.  He used to tell us at his rehearsals, ‘You are like gods and goddesses,’ and we believed him. You felt terribly regal and worthy and proud to be a dancer.”

Kenny Leon, director of NBC’s upcoming airing of The Wiz, remarked that Holder  “Designed, directed, choreographed and acted all at the highest level. His inspiration on The Wiz in the ’70s makes it possible for what we are to do with the revival in 2015.  I have the highest respect and gratitude to the man.”

Exhibit Open Now. Ends August 29th, 2015.

The post The Genius of Geoffrey Holder On Display At NYPL appeared first on Broadway Black.

In 1958, he moved from his Philadelphia, P.A. hometown to California where he studied at Los Angeles City College and San Francisco State College. While there, he encountered his first career critics. One professor told him that he would never make it as a writer and another all but ousted him from the Contemporary Literature Club because of the color of his skin. Nevertheless, he was determined to become a writer.

San Francisco became the birthing place for Bullins the playwright. In 1965 Robert Hartman of the San Francisco Drama Circle produced Bullins’ one-act plays How Do You Do?, Dialect Determinism and Clara’s Ole Man at the Firehouse Repertory Theater.

Black Arts/West was also founded in 1965 by revolutionary and poet Marvin X along with Ed Bullins, Ethna Wyatt, Duncan Barber, Hillary Broadous, and Carl Brossiere. Black Arts/West was a conglomerate of black artists in the Black Arts Movement of the 1950s on the west coast. Members of Black Arts/West convinced Eldridge Cleaver to convert a large Victorian house into what Samuel Hays, author of Ed Bullins: A Literary Biography, refers to as the “birthing place of revolutionary thought and activities in Northern California.”

Marvin X facilitated the connection between Cleaver and Black Panther Party Leaders and, together, the group opened Black House at 1711 Broderick Street. Black House served dual functions, as an outlet for Black revolutionary artists and the headquarters of the party. Bullins became the party’s Minister of Culture but by late 1966 ideological differences between party leader Huey Newton and members of Black Arts/West polarized Black House. Bullins left the party and joined Robert Macbeth at the New Lafayette Theater in Harlem in 1967.

While Bullins was delving into the world of African American theater on the west coast, Macbeth— a product of Charleston, S.C., embarked a parallel journey on the east. He was inspired by the beat of the South. The sit-in movement, bus integration rides and protests awakened Macbeth the artist. As an actor, he understudied the likes of James Earl Jones, Louis Gossett and Billy Dee Williams but the heart breaking images of four little black girls, murdered in a fiery Birmingham church on a Sunday morning motivated him to want to do more. Macbeth set out for meaningful contribution in the 1960s and as he began developing his own theater, a colleague sent him Goin’ a Buffalo written by Bullins. He instantly knew that Bullins was the writer he was in search of.  

“I need something Ray Charles-Mahalia Jackson-Miles Davis-Aretha Franklin-Nina Simone-Curtis Mayfield-Jimi Hendrix-John Coltrane, arranged by Duke Ellington or Sun Ra. I was searching for a creative inspiration. I might not be able to describe it clearly, but I knew I would feel it when I read it,” Macbeth recalled in his commentary Bullins and Me a Remembrance of Past Times.

Macbeth contacted Bullins who then sent him In The Wine Time— the first of his Twentieth Century Cycle. Soon Bullins was contracted and settling into the New York scene with Macbeth and the New Lafayette Theater. Bullins served as playwright-in-residence until 1972 and in 1968 he received the Drama Desk-Vernon Rice Award for The Electronic Nigger. During this time he founded and edited Black Theatre Magazine and later formed the Surviving Theatre in the Bronx.

To understand the importance of Bullins in the Black Arts Movement you have to acknowledge the severity of the times. Macbeth explains working with actors and planning for the New Lafayette Theater on the same day, merely 20 blocks away, when Malcolm X was murdered. In 1968 Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated and the Vietnam War claimed hundreds of young American lives each week. Artists of the movement took on the responsibility of transcribing the Black narrative, investigating and reflecting on aspects of the revolution and informing the masses. While Marvin Gaye wrote What’s Going On, Bullins produced We Righteous Bombers under the name Kinsgley B. Bass, Jr.

His recognition grew in the 1970s. The Fabulous Miss Marie (1971) and In New England Winter (1971) received Obie Awards and The Taking of Miss Janie (1975) won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. Bullins assisted young writers as writing coordinator for the New York Shakespeare Festival from 1975 to 1982 and served as playwright-in-residence at the American Place Theatre.

In addition to the Obie and New York Drama Critics Circle Awards, he also received three Rockefeller Foundation playwriting grants, a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation, a Visionary Leadership Award from the Theatre Communications Group and an honorary doctor of letters from Columbia College. He taught at several colleges and universities including Northeastern University in Boston, M.A.

Bullins has written over 50 plays. His commitment to exploring the complexities of what it is like to be Black and engulfed by racism, family, music, religion, drugs, violence and everything else in America earned him recognition as one of the best American dramatists of all time.

The post Ed Bullins: A Pioneer of the Black Arts Movement appeared first on Broadway Black.

Alton Fitzgerald White (Miss Saigon, The Who’s Tommy, Smokey Joe’s Café, Ragtime, The Color Purple) first starred as Mufasa 12 years ago, in the first touring production of the long-running Broadway hit. He returned to the role in The Lion King production at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas from 2009 to 2011, and became a staple at the Minskoff Theatre on Broadway.

The Lion King is the highest-grossing Broadway show in New York history and one of the most popular stage musicals in the world. Since its Broadway premiere on November 13, 1997, 22 productions have been seen by more than 70 million people worldwide.  Notably, The Lion King is only the second show in history to generate five productions worldwide running 10 or more years.

White wrote on his Facebook page, “I am forever grateful to Disney for a relationship and experience that has positively shifted my life FOREVER!!!!  I am super-excited and grateful that THE UNIVERSE is guiding me toward new ways of sharing my gifts and of doing SERVICE!!!”

Broadway Black extends a hearty thank you to Alton White for performing in front of countless fans and for his thunderous and powerful talent that made The Lion King a Broadway staple.

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