“So beyond thrilled to be making my Bobbie debut today at @companybway!!!! I’ll be on for both performances! #firstBlackBobbieonBroadway #understudies @broadwayunderstudies” said Daniels via Instagram

CONGRATULATIONS NIKKI!!!

Daniels made sure to clarify that she was not the first Black Bobbie in Company ever. Jennifer Saayeng from the West End cast of Company, of which the current Broadway production hails, went on for the role Pre-Covid shutdown in 2018

Daniels’ current bio from the Company on Broadway website reads:

“Nikki Renée Daniels (Jenny) recently played Angelica Schuyler in the Chicago company of Hamilton. 10 Broadway shows, including The Book of Mormon (Nabulungi), The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess (Clara), Les Miserables (Fantine), Anything Goes and Promises, Promises. Nikki has performed as a soloist with numerous symphony orchestras across the country, in Canada, and at Carnegie Hall. Her debut solo CD, “Home” is available on iTunes and CDBaby.com.  All my love to Jeff, Lena and Louise. @nikkireneesings”

Daniels’ current bio from the Company on Broadway website

The post Nikki Renee Daniels Becomes Broadway’s First Black Bobbie in <em>Company</em> appeared first on Broadway Black.

The founding members of BTU, which include the star power of Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Wendell Pierce, Billy Porter, Anna Deavere Smith, Lillias White, Kenny Leon, Norm Lewis, Vanessa Williams, and more, spearheaded the development of this 17-page document titled The New Deal in a summit that took place from March through August of 2021. This summit included the voices of industry leaders across five working groups – theatre owners, producers, unions, creatives, and casting directors.

Black Theatre United’s New Deal For Broadway is a first of its kind document outlining both short-term reforms to be implemented prior to Broadway’s reopening in Fall 2021 and long-term reforms to be implemented in the next 1-3 years. The document details reforms in the areas of artistic culture, policies and cultural training, pipeline initiatives, audience development and community engagement.

Download Black Theatre United’s New Deal For Broadway HERE! 

The BTU Founders said, “Black Theatre United was proud to host this remarkable and historic collaboration. It is an important first step to reopening our industry with a bright spotlight focused on diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and belonging for Black professionals in the arts. Though one of many initiatives created by Black, BIPOC and allied organizations since the death of George Floyd, BTU’s Summit is the first to bring together all areas of our industry from theatre owners and producers to creatives, casting and unions. We are grateful to all those who have worked diligently with us for the last six months and to all those who committed to the principles of this document by signing their names to it. Special thanks to our collaborators Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow from the Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at NYU School of Law for their facilitation, EDIAB training for all participants, and drafting of the New Deal.”

Led by NYU Law School’s Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Director Kenji Yoshino and facilitated by BTU Founding Members, attendees included representatives from:

The Broadway League (Charlotte St. Martin),

Shubert Organization (Bob Wankel & Julio Peterson),

Nederlander Organization (Nick Scandalios, Anthony LaTorella & Christina Selby),

Jujamcyn Theaters (Jordan Roth & Hal Goldberg),

Disney Theatrical Productions (Thomas Schumacher & Anne Quart),

Circle in the Square (Paul Libin),

Lincoln Center Theatre (Andre Bishop & Adam Siegel),

Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes & Steve Dow),

Second Stage (Carole Rothman & Khady Kamara),

Manhattan Theatre Club (Lynne Meadow),

John Gore Organization/Broadway Across America (Lauren Reid),

ASU Gammage (Colleen JenningsRoggensack),

The Telsey Office (Bernie Telsey),

Tara Rubin Casting (Tara Rubin),

X Casting (Victor Vazquez),

Stewart/Whitley (Benton Whitley),

Actors’ Equity Association (Mary McColl, Kate Shindle & E. Faye Butler),

Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (Laura Penn),

Local One IATSE (Eileen Macdonald, Bobby Score, Richard F. Rogers & Wilber Graham),

Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Local 798, IATSE (Daniel Dashman & Angela Johnson),

American Federation of Musicians Local 802 (Pete Donovan)

Producers: Maggie Brohn, Stephen Byrd, Kristin Caskey, Liz Curtis, Sue Frost, Alia Jones-Harvey, Tom Kirdahy, Brian Moreland, Ron Simons and David Stone.

Directors: Mark Brokaw, Rachel Chavkin, Lear DeBessonet, Michael Greif, Jerry Mitchell, Lonny Price and Charles Randolph-Wright

Choreographers: Christopher Gattelli, Denis Jones and Sergio Trujillo,

Designers: David Brian Brown and Cookie Jordan

Composers: Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Tom Kitt, Robert Lopez, Zane Mark and Jeanine Tesori

Playwrights Lynn Nottage and Doug Wright

Music Directors: Mary-Mitchell Campbell, Alex Lacamoire and Stephen Oremus.

The Black Theatre United commercial summit was funded by a generous grant from the Ford Foundation and the Tiger Baron Foundation provided additional funding.

BTU’s founding group of actors, directors, musicians, writers, technicians, producers and stage management includes: Lisa Dawn Cave, Darius de Haas, Carin Ford, Capathia Jenkins, LaChanze, Kenny Leon, Norm Lewis, Audra McDonald, Michael McElroy, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Wendell Pierce, Billy Porter, Anna Deavere Smith, Allyson Tucker, Tamara Tunie, Lillias White, NaTasha Yvette Williams, Schele Williams and Vanessa Williams.

AWARENESS • ADVOCACY • ACCOUNTABILITY

“As members of the Black theatre community, we stand together to help protect Black people, Black theatre, and Black lives of all shapes and orientations in communities across the country. Our voices are united to educate, empower, and inspire through excellence and activism in the pursuit of justice and equality. We will tell our stories, preserve our history, and ensure the legacy of Black theatre as American culture. Join us. This call to action is just the beginning. It was the latest manifestations of police brutality that galvanized Black Theatre United into being. With roots reaching into all 50 of the United States this coalition can harness invaluable political scope and influence. To elevate a cause or to overturn policies that target black people in any one state or community, the group will draw on members with local connections to use their visibility and influence for good in theater and on the national stage.

For more information visit www.BlackTheatreUnited.com

The post Black Theatre United Releases Historic New Deal For Broadway appeared first on Broadway Black.

Camille A. Brown

There is magic in the air, for colored girls… magic! Antonyo Award winner and Tony Award nominee Camille A. Brown will direct and choreograph the upcoming production of Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf on Broadway in 2022. This will mark her directorial debut on Broadway and also make her the first Black woman to serve as both director and choreographer on a Broadway production in more than 65 years. She follows in the footsteps of Katherine Dunham who directed and choreographed several revues and a musical in the 1940s.

Brown won the 2020 Antonyo Award for Best Choreography for her work on the Off-Broadway production of for colored girls… at The Public Theatre. Among her lengthy choreography credits are two proven Broadway Black favorites from previous seasons, Once On This Island and Choir Boy by Tarrell Alvin McCraney. She’s also no stranger to the small screen, known for her work on “Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert,” the Oscar-nominated Netflix film Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, as well as the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Porgy and Bess. She is the founder and artistic director of the award-winning dance company Camille A. Brown and Dancers.

“I’m extremely thrilled and honored to helm this new production of for colored girls…,” said Brown. “It’s an amazing feeling to bring this seminal show back to Broadway 45 years after it opened at the Booth Theatre on September 15, 1976. I look forward to diving into the divine Ntozake Shange’s choreopoem and celebrating her legacy.”

A groundbreaking work in modern American theater, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf returned to The Public Theater in 2019 for the first time since it premiered in 1976, before its breakthrough run on Broadway in . Filled with passion, humor, and raw honesty, legendary playwright/poet Ntozake Shange’s formchanging choreopoem tells the stories of seven Black women using poetry, song and movement. With unflinching honesty and emotion, each woman voices her survival story of having to exist in a world shaped by sexism and racism.

Nelle Nugent, Ron Simons and Kenneth Teaton will produce for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf on Broadway. Further details including a cast, creative team, venue and performance dates are to be announced.

“It is an honor to help usher the return of Ntozake Shange’s groundbreaking work to Broadway under the direction and choreography of Camille A. Brown, who is herself blazing a new path on Broadway as the first Black woman in more than 65 years taking on this dual role,” said producer Ron Simons. “I am quite confident that the ancestors and Ntozake’s spirit are lifted.”

The post Camille A. Brown Will Direct & Choreograph <em>for colored girls…</em> On Broadway appeared first on Broadway Black.

Courtesy of @Crossroadstheatrecompany/IG

On February 20th, 2021 Douglas Turner Ward (playwright, actor, director, and theatrical producer) a pillar in the Black theatre community passed away. Ward founded The Negro Ensemble Company with Robert Hooks and Gerald Krone in 1967. By the time Ward had come together with Krone and Hooks to create The Negro Ensemble Company, he had already been on Broadway in the original 1959 cast of A Raisin in The Sun. He was cast in a small role while understudying Sidney Portier. In the mid 1960s Ward created a play called Day of Absence that was about Black people disappearing from a southern town. In the production, Black actors wore whiteface makeup in order to play white characters left alone without their Black neighbors, and it showcased Ward’s scathing satirical humor when it came to writing. The production was accompanied by an article in The New York Times written by Ward titled “American Theater: For Whites Only?” The article called for a Black repertory theatre company. A year after the production, a grant in the amount of $434,000, was awarded to Ward and with the funds, The Negro Ensemble Company was created with Ward as the Artistic Director and Krone and Hooks in other leadership roles.

“Just to lighten up the heavy political raps, I started writing primarily satirical things.  And, ultimately wrote my first performance piece. It was called Star of Liberty, concerning the rebel slave Nat Turner. This little play, which was only a half hour long, was performed before an audience of nearly 5,000 people at a rally. Well, the response to this play at the rally was very thrilling. I was nineteen years old when I wrote this piece and that led me in the direction of trying to write more directly for the theatre.  Because up until then, I’d been messing around with short stories and other genres.  Sports writing had been my primary interest, but now drama was beginning to take the focus.”

The Negro Ensemble Company has a notable roster of alumni such as Debbie Allen, John Amos, Angela Bassett, Roscoe Lee Browne, Adolph Caesar, Godfrey Cambridge, Rosalind Cash, Keith David, Giancarlo Esposito, Antonio Fargas, Laurence Fishburne, Frances Foster, Al Freeman, Jr., Danny Glover, Louis Gossett, Jr., David Alan Grier, Moses Gunn, Jackée Harry, Sherman Hemsley, Kene Holliday, Samuel L. Jackson, Cleavon Little, Delroy Lindo, S. Epatha Merkerson, Debbi Morgan, Garrett Morris, Denise Nicholas, Ron O’Neal, Phylicia Rashad, Esther Rolle, Richard Roundtree, Clarice Taylor, Glynn Turman, Denzel Washington, and Lynn Whitfield, and many more. His 1981 production of A Soldier’s Play, who’s original cast included David Allen Grier, Denzel Washington, and Samuel L. Jackson was revived in January 2020 and has earned 7 pending Tony nominations. In the years after it’s founding The Negro Ensemble Company produced some important works such as The River Niger, written by Joseph A. Walker, which later opened on Broadway and won the 1974 Tony Award for best play, with Ward as director and performer. There was a 1976 film adaptation that starred Cicely Tyson, James Earl Jones and Louis Gossett, Jr.

 

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Ward was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 1996 and has won many awards over his career such as an Obie, a Tony, and a Drama Desk Award. The Negro Ensemble Company earned a special Tony award.

The post You Should Know: Douglas Turner Ward and The Negro Ensemble Company appeared first on Broadway Black.

The musical debuted at the New York Theater with comedic duo Bert Williams and George Walker at the helm. The two brought their styles of improvisation, comedic timing, and musical acumen to an evolving Black theatre aesthetic that went from stereotypical minstrel shows to a universal vaudeville scene. It was also the first musical of its kind to bring culturally relevant knowledge of Africa and African nations to American theatre. 

The premise of the musical was inspired by the backdrop of the back-to-Africa movement supported by the American Colonization Society which called for Black Americans to return to Africa to reclaim their land. The musical follows the schemes and journeys of two conmen, Shylock Homestead (Williams) and Rareback Punkerton (Walker), who discover a pot of gold and hatch a plan to return to Africa to take over Dahomey (now considered as modern-day Benin). Before they can even get there, money gets in the way of their friendship, their lives are threatened, and the musical peaks with a legendary cakewalk (a style of dance made famous by Blacks who would gather on slave plantations). The original cast also starred Pete Hampton, Fred Douglas, Alex Rogers, Walter Richardson, Geo Catlin, and J. A. Shipp. 

The musical lasted for 53 performances (a record at the time for a musical created by and performed by Black talent). Not only did it find commercial success in America, but it also found life amongst theatergoers in London who were interested in the Black American experience. It went on to London in April 1903 to the Shaftesbury Theatre and a special performance for the royal family at Buckingham Palace. Since its debut on Broadway, there has only been one notable “revival” in 1999 produced at the Henry Street Settlement in  New York City directed by Shauneille Perry (with a remodeled script to fit the current time period).

Today we honor the contributions and sacrifices of those who brought In Dahomey into the spotlight. Without them, we wouldn’t have musicals like Shuffle Along, Dreamgirls, Ain’t Misbehavin’, and so many other timeless and brilliant all-Black musicals that give a glimpse into our harrowed, yet resilient past. Happy Black History Month! 

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The post This Day In Black Theatre History: Broadway’s First Black Musical <em>In Dahomey</em> Debuts appeared first on Broadway Black.