Black Professional Theatre Origins and Black Performance of the “Classics” (INSTITUTIONS) 

Milestones and Connections: Black theatre matters: Ira Aldridge, James Hewlett  and the legacy of the African Company/African Grove Theatre, Georgia Douglas  Johnson’s S Street Salon, Playwriting Contests in The Crisis Magazine and  Opportunity Magazines, West coast Black theatres (i.e. African-American  Shakespeare Company, etc.). 

​

Historical Narrative Cycles on Black Life and Black Death (PLAY  TEXTS/GENRES) 

Milestones and Connections: The Harlem Renaissance then and now: traveling  tent and medicine shows, anti-lynching plays (i.e. the inaugural 1991 staged  production of Angelina Weld Grimke’s play Rachel at Spelman College and the 2016  KC Melting Pot production), original works and adaptations of historic works. 

​

Black Stage Designers and Directors (ARTISTRY, THE BUSINESS, THE  FUTURE) 

Milestones and Connections: Individual artists that have achieved significant  milestones as designers and technicians, directors and stage managers whose  careers have made historical impact and are shaping the future of Black production

Black Musicals and/or Chicago Theatre’s Black legacies  

​

(INSTITUTIONS/CRAFT/MARKET) 

Milestones and Connections: Black musicals and original work, Black theatre  history in Chicago and the midwest (i.e. FTP Negro Units, The Pekin Theatre, Black  Patti’s Troubadaors at World’s Columbian Exposition, etc.) formal training in  Chicago, Black Ensemble Theatre, Chicago, IL, Lorraine Hansberry and A Raisin in  the Sun. 

​

Economics of Black Theatre/Boston and New England (EARLY PERIODS or  BLACK ARTS/BLACK POWER or NOW) 

Milestones and Connections: Racial wealth gap impact on Black theatre  development, Black theatre history in Boston and New England (i.e. William Wells  Brown, the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts, the New England premier of plays like  Antoinette Nwandu’s Pass Over, etc.) Individual Black Artists who consciously  inserted the aesthetics of Black performance in mainstream and culturally specific  modes of Theatre/performance training (i.e. Professor/Actor Adrienne McNeil  Herndon at Atlanta University; Dr. Anne Margaret Cooke Reid at Spelman College,  Hampton Institute, Howard University, Ntozake Shange’s transformative creation of  the choreopoem as a means to give voice to the systemic and cultural oppression of  Black Women). 

​

Black Arts, Black Power & the Black Theatre Training Programs (CASE  STUDIES OF THEATRE TRAINING AND ACADEMIC PROGRAMS)

Milestones and Connections: Ellen Stewart’s La Mama Experimental Theatre  Club, Vernell Lillie’s Kuntu Theatre at the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Winona Lee  Fletcher (Kentucky State University and Indiana University)---George C. Wolfe,  Margaret Wilkerson at Berkeley University, Ethel Pitts Walker, Maidie Norman well  known film actress and innovator of Black Theatre Pedagogy at UCLA, Llyod  Richards at Yale University, The Negro Ensemble Company, The Black Arts Institute  at The Billie Holiday Theatre. 

 

Amplifying Black Voices from the South and Midwest (REGIONAL  REPRESENTATION IN WRITING AND ACTING) 

Milestones and Connections: Jomandi Theatre and Just Us Theatre Companies in  Atlanta, GA, Hattiloo Theatre, Memphis, TN, Free Southern Black Theatre, Kenny  Leon’s True Colors Theatre, Tupac Amaru Shakur Center for the Arts, Zora! Festival  Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities, National Black Theatre  Festival in Winston, Salem, NC, Tyler Perry and the Urban Circuit. 

 

Staging Black Stories through Music and Ritual (CRAFT OF ACTING,  WRITING NEW FORMS AND TECHNIQUES),  

Milestones and Connections: Plantation performances, early Black musicals,  Southern Black Theaters, Black church dramas, Dr. Tonea Stewart, Theatre of  Being, Frank Silvera, Paul Carter Harrison, Dr. Barbara Ann Teer, Vinnette Carroll  and Urban Arts Corps.

​

Historically Black Colleges and Universities Influence on Black Theatre and  Performance Legacies (HARLEM RENAISSANCE TO NOW) 

Milestones and Connections: Clark Atlanta University and the Atlanta University  Center (Spelman and Morehouse), Howard University, Dr. Anne M. Cooke (Reid)  and Adrienne Herndon, Owen Dodson, Alabama State University, Florida A&M  University, Fort Valley State University, Hampton University, Norfolk State  University, North Carolina A& T University, Savannah State University and others. 

​

We are all connected: Black Theatre and Performance Networks and  Coalitions 

Milestones and Connections: Black Theatre organizations and networks: The  Frogs, The Southern Association of Dramatic Speech Arts (SADSA), National  Association of Dramatic Speech Arts (NADSA), Federal Theatre Project Negro Units,  Black Theatre Network, 21st Century Black theatre organizations and events. 

​

The Black Seed and Beyond 

This closing chapter will discuss the impact of the converging pandemics of COVID  and racial injustice on Black theatre and performance thereby taking a snapshot of  the moment in which this text is written. Drawing from lessons learned in historical  moments of crisis, many of which will be covered in previous chapters, the epilogue  highlights selected models that reimagine paths forward for the future.