July was a time for discovery, realization, and appreciation as audiences got to see “Triple Threat,” the autobiographical one-man show written and performed by James T. Lane. Lane candidly put his entire life up on the stage, from growing up without a father to becoming a star on stage and abusing drugs. He took the audience on a journey of the highs and lows of his life. He shared the racism he faced in this industry as a gay Black man with amazing classical acting talents. The play was riveting and powerfully directed and choreographed by Kenny Ingram, and played at Theatre Row on W. 42nd Street. Lane is definitely someone to keep an eye out for in the future!
What a complete joy it was to sit in the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park and watch the final production before its renovations begin. The Public Theatre presented “Hamlet,” and it was marvelous! It has the always-creative, unique direction of Kenny Leon, who takes classical plays and brings them into modern times, with mainly Black casts. This work had Leon’s creativity reaching new heights. The cast delivered the words with great intensity and impact. Actors included Ato Blankson-Wood, John Douglas Thompson, Lorraine Toussaint, Solea Pfeiffer, and Warner Miller.
“Rock and Roll Man” played at New World Stages on W. 50th Street and told the musical story of Alan Freed, a White DJ in the 1960s who was the first man brave enough to play Black artists’ songs on a White-owned station in Cleveland, Ohio. This musical gave audiences a rocking trip down memory lane as groups of that era were recreated and songs from the time were made vibrant again. Numbers included “Sixty Minute Man,” “Rocket 88,” “Money Honey,” “Jim Dandy,” “Lucille,” “Sincerely,” “Maybelline,” “Good Golly Miss Molly,” “Tutti Frutti,” “Tweedle Dee,” “Roll Over, Beethoven,” “Yakety Yak,” and “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.”
The Black cast making this possible was phenomenal and included Rodrick Covington, Valisia LeKae, Matthew S. Morgan, Jamonte, Lawrence Dandridge, AJ Davis, and Eric B. Turner.
“Primary Trust” was a fascinating play, marking the debut of a new Black female playwright, Eboni Booth. It played at the Roundabout Laura Pels Theatre at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre at W. 46th Street. Booth used humor, tragedy, trauma, mental illness, and finding a way to take another path in life to beautifully deliver a message of hope. The play’s main character, Kenneth, suffered greatly and lost his mother at the age of 10, the same age that he created his imaginary best friend, Bert.
Kenneth had a hard time socializing and lived a very lonely existence. Booth delicately and caringly allowed Kenneth to tell his story and helped the audience to see the dilemma that people with mental illness go through and some of the things that can cause conditions to manifest themselves.
William Jackson Harper delivered a phenomenal performance as Kenneth. He took us on an emotional rollercoaster that made us have to strap in tight and hold onto the belt so we wouldn’t be thrown from the ride. He brought every ounce of passion, vulnerability, sadness, grief, and anger to the role.
Eric Berryman played Bert, Kenneth’s imaginary friend, and was marvelous.
April Matthis played multiple roles with great ease. She is such a gifted actress in anything that she takes on. In this production, she delivered several characters with humor, kindness, and sympathy.
The cast was joined on stage by theater veteran Jay O. Sanders, who was superb as always and delivered his A-game.
August gave us “Unentitled,” a new play by Charles Wright presented by the Negro Ensemble Company and played at 59E59 Theaters. The play was quite entertaining, but in between the multiple laughs, there were a lot of lessons about Black ownership, legacy, and our connection to our past that we should and must pass on to our children.
In this production, the Saunders family has a summer home in Sag Harbor that belongs to Deanna and her brother Ben, but what happens when Deanna’s husband Frank loses his law firm job and needs money to start a new business? That’s where the excitement comes in. There are also elements of surprise about this home that Deanna’s father left to his children.
The ensemble cast was splendid and included Kenya Wilson, Leah Finnie, Gil Tucker, Reggie Wilson, and Adrian Washington. The play had amusing direction by Florante Galvez.
It was ladies’ bonding time at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater on W. 65th Street as the play “FLEX” was presented. This play featured a woman writer and director, and an all-female cast! Yes, that’s right—and they were playing basketball and doing very well, I might add!
This incredible piece of theater showed the varied and complicated facets of young Black female friendships, competition, and betrayal, as well as the spiritual bonding that can occur among Black high school basketball players. The moving story was beautifully written by Candrice Jones and focused on five members of the Lady Train basketball team who were getting ready to compete in the state competition and hoping to be seen and appreciated by college basketball scouts.
This cast is funny, skilled, and touching, and they inspire you to aspire to know your dreams and fulfill them, but also realize the value of the friends around you. The actresses were a marvelous cohesive ensemble and delivered slam-dunk performances and had the audience on their feet cheering. This incredible all-female cast included Erica Matthews, Ciara Monique, Renita Lewis, Brittany Bellizeare, Tamera Tomakili, Christiana Clark, and Eboni Edwards. The direction of Lileana Blain-Cruz was absolutely brilliant.
A play that centered on Greek mythology and came across as a master class on storytelling was “The Half-God of Rainfall,” beautifully presented by New York Theatre Workshop at 79 E. 4th Street. The creative, captivating production was the work of Nigerian poet and playwright Inau Ellams. The production was co-produced with American Repertory Theatre. This production had to do with mythology—powerful gods like Zeus, Hera, Shango, Osun, Elegba, a mortal but highly favored female named Modupe, and her half-god son Demi—and the game of basketball. The stage design connected you to nature, because it was covered with dirt and the actors were barefoot.
You got the sense from the beginning that this production was going to be somewhat of a spiritual, healing journey—and it truly was. There are times when one is in the theater that a production connects with you on a deeper level than you were expecting, and that was what happened with this production. Every one of the seven actors delivered thunderbolts of mesmerizing performances. They told the story with their words, their bodies, and their hearts.
The cast featured several African Americans, including Patrice Johnson Chevannes, Jason Bowen, Jennifer Mogbock, Lizan Mitchell, and Mister Fitzgerald. The production had stunning direction by Taibi Magar.
“Mecca Is Burning,” a presentation by the Negro Ensemble Company that played at the Harlem School of the Arts, sounded a clarion call throughout the Harlem community—to address the serious and worsening issue of gentrification. It delved deeply into the history of Black Harlem, how that history is kept by the older generation, but how the present generation will not be able to have similar, incredible memories: memories of community as a Black family, of the elders, and of cultural connection. This raw work called out all the catastrophes that have overwhelmed Harlem, with white people deciding that this is now their home and working to make Black folks feel unwelcome in their own community.
With a deliberately vivid, candid, raw, and truth-filled script created collaboratively by Cris Eli Blak, Lisa McCree, Levy Lee Simon, and Mona R. Washington, under the leadership of director Karen Brown, this play hit home in so many ways. The audience learned the story through four scenarios and the actors were captivating to watch at every instance. This cast included Benjamin Rowe, Joy Renee, Reginald L. Barnes, Tatianna Perry, Kenya Wilson (who you may recall was also in “Unentitled”), Alton Ray, Ashlee Danielle, and Sharell Williams.
September ushered in Ishmael Reed’s play about white racists in this country targeting various minority groups other than Blacks—for this piece, people from India. The play was “The Conductor: A Living Newspaper” and it played at the Theater for the New City on 1st Avenue. In this play, people from India are targeted to the point of trying to return to India to be safe. They had their businesses closed, families threatened, and things become so dangerous that they had to get passage to India through an underground railroad.
The cast delivered stirring performances and included Brian Anthony Simmons, Monisha Shiva, Sri Chilukuri, Kenya Wilson, Laura Robards, and Emil Guillermo. Carla Blank provided interesting direction.
The brilliant, powerful, and hilarious play “Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through The Cotton Patch,” written by the late, great Ossie Davis returned to Broadway more than 60 years later, and it is as relevant today as it originally was.
This play tells the story of Purlie Victorious, a Black minister trying to fight to get a church and respect for his people who live on the plantation of Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee. Laugh-out-loud funny, joyous, and inspiring all words describe this work. Let the church say “Amen.”
This production, which is still playing at the Music Box Theater on W. 45th Street, is a must-see and will run through February 2024. This play is done with great respect, joy, and love for Davis’s message and it amusingly points out the ridiculousness of racism, which Davis combats with humor.
I love the fact that this is also a producing debut for the play’s star, Leslie Odom, Jr. The play has a remarkable Black cast—Odom is joined on stage by phenomenal thespians, including Kara Young, Billy Eugene Jones, Heather Alicia Simms, and Vanessa Bell Calloway. Jay O. Sanders and Noah Robbins are also featured in this marvelous cast. The direction by Kenny Leon is nothing less than perfection.
October was when a first happened on Broadway as “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding” played at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. This play, written by African American playwright Jocelyn Bioh, told the stories of women who worked at Jaja’s African Hair Braiding in Harlem. This storyline shined a spotlight on a group that has never had a voice on Broadway. It let the audience get to know these hardworking women and the struggles that they endure in trying to make a living and take care of their families in this country. You saw friendships, rivalries, and women maneuvering through their relationships with the men in their lives.
The play had stunning direction by Whitney White.
This play delivered a lot of laughs and a lot of zaniness, and felt a lot like watching a Nollywood film on YouTube, complete with great humor and African music.
This ensemble cast hit the ground running for the 90 minutes that you shared in their world. From the workers to the customers, you had a thoroughly good time. The cast featured Zenzi Williams, Nana Mensah, Dominique Thorne, Brittany Adebumola, Maechi Aharanwa, Rachel Christopher, Somi Kakoma, Kalyne Coleman, Lakisha May, and Michael Oloyede.
“The Refuge Plays” were presented by the Roundabout Theater company at the Laura Pels Theatre Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre on W. 46th Street. This play, written by Nathan Alan Davis, looked at the connection shared by family members over generations; a haunting connection that allowed our passed-on relatives to visit us, warn us, guide, and advise us about positive, helpful things we can do to improve our lives. It told the story in reverse order, which was unusual.
Deep down, we all want to believe that our loved ones who have gone on are able to be around us and help us with this journey called life. In Davis’s work, the family of Grandma Early shares a special connection.
The ensemble cast was terrific. It included Nicole Ari Parker, Jessica Frances Dukes, Ngozi Anyanwu, JJ Wynder, Daniel J. Watts, Jon Michael Hill, Lance Coadie Williams, Mallori Taylor Johnson, Lizan Mitchell, and Jerome Preston Bates. Patricia McGregor delivered distinctive direction.
Woodie King, Jr.’s New Federal Theatre presented “Telling Tales out of School” at the Castillo Theatre on W. 42nd Street and it was quite memorable. The production, written by Wesley Brown, shined a light on four women in history: Zora Neale Hurston, Jessie Fauset, Nella Larsen, and Nancy Cunard.
While Cunard was white, all four women fought for the rights of Black people. The writers let the audience get to see the vulnerable sides and hardships that each of these women faced. This was a production to educate you and ignite your interests in our history.
The four actresses bought their characters home beautifully and included Elizabeth Van Dyke, Richarda Abrams, Petronia Paley and June Ballinger. King gave flawless direction.
Black Spectrum Theatre, the brainchild of Carl Clay, did what it does best at 177th Street and Baisley Boulevard: It presented an original work, this one written and directed by Clay, about a topic that is very important to our community: gentrification, based in a Queen’s neighborhood.
Entitled “The Last Block Association,” the production focused on a block association composed of mainly Black homeowners and people from other cultures as well. Pauline, president of the block association, had to deal with the neighbors arguing, fighting, and threatening each other as she tried to keep the block together and make improvements. Suddenly they are faced with a Jewish family trying to move in and change the look of the block—something that gave the people a lot to be concerned about.
This play showed the importance of the people on the block standing together to protect what has been in their families for generations. It also addressed the need to squash misunderstanding and disagreements that make neighbors have a weak link that can allow people to come in and break up the neighborhood they have established.
The ensemble cast was amazing and included Ashlee Danielle, Jade Mason, Aaron Watkins, Fulton C. Hodges, Swavian Loney, Amer Zafer, Darnell Shelton, Joy Renee, Matthew Sirju, and Kevin Shivcharran. This play is scheduled to come back in 2024, so look out for it.
You can’t have a review of the year in Black theater without talking about and celebrating the inaugural gala at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in Manhattan by Black Theatre United (BTU), an organization started by Black Theater professionals to secure equity, diversity, inclusion, accessibility, and belonging on Broadway for Black people. Birthed during the COVID lockdown and impelled by the murder of George Floyd, BTU seeks to ensure that Black people have opportunities in all phases of the industry, from onstage to behind-the-scenes work.
The organization came up with “The New Deal,” an agreement with theater owners, producers, and unions, setting down rules for making sure that Black theater workers have access to a range of opportunities, including company management, public relations, and jobs connected to Broadway shows.
BTU offers Black students internships and mentors so they get a taste of the industry while they are in school, and many BTU student participants have gone on to get jobs in the industry in their chosen fields.
The founding members of BTU include Lisa Dawn Cave, Carin Ford, Vanessa Williams, Audra McDonald, LaChanze, Billy Porter, Capathia Jenkins, Kenny Leon, Michael McElroy, Wendell Pierce, Anna Deavere Smith, Allyson Tucker, Tamara Tunie, Schele Williams, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Darius de Haas, NaTasha Yvette Williams, Lillias White, and Norm Lewis.
On October 30, the Ziegfeld Ballroom at 141 W. 54th Street was an amazing place to be as the gala themed “A Salute to Broadway Legends: Past, Present and Future” was held. Performers included Vanessa Williams, Norm Lewis, Andra McDonald, LaChanze, and Billy Porter. The evening honored Kandi Burruss, Common, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Samuel L. Jackson, Robyn Coles, Dr. N. Anthony Coles, and Dr. Indira Etwaroo. Presenters for the event included Andrea Burns, Nicholas Christopher, Lorna Courtney, Wilson Cruz, Seth Rudetsky, and Josh Groban. The honorary co-chairs for this gala included Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Cookie Johnson, Al Roker, Deborah Roberts, Blair Underwood, Congresswoman Ayanna Presley, Tommi A. Vincent and Troy Vincent, Sr.
November is always when the AUDELCO VIV Awards honor Black theater excellence and the 51st Annual Awards were quite glorious. Held at the Alhambra Ballroom in Harlem, the evening was hosted by Tobias Truvillion and Aixa Kendrick, and it was amazing! The 2023 honorees were a who’s who of the theater. Legacy Awards deservedly were bestowed on Allie Wood, Jr. and Sonia Sanchez. Lifetime Achievement Awards went to Ted Lange, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Petronia Paley, and Roscoe Orman.
Pioneer Awards went to Dr. Aduke Aremu, Elain Graham, and Terria Joseph. Outstanding Achievement Awards were presented to Yolanda Brooks and John Ruiz Miranda, John Douglas Thompson, and Karen Thorton. Board of Director Awards were given to Senator Cordell Cleare, Brian A. Moreland, and Johnnie Mae. Special achievement awards were presented to Roslyn Ruff, Javon Johnson, Dietrice A. Bolden, and Luther D. Isler.
As always, the gala was a gathering filled with love, admiration, appreciation, and a feeling of ancestral connection—we all appreciate standing on the shoulders of those who have come before. So many marvelous productions were honored with VIV awards the evening of November 20th and the detailed article can be found on AmNews’ website!
“Monty Python’s Spamalot” has achieved the holy grail of Broadway theater by delivering the biggest, longest, and best laughs you will ever experience in a Broadway house. Playing at the St. James Theatre on W. 44th Street, it is without question the best, funniest musical theater experience you could ever imagine. Based on the film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” it is hilariously enhanced by the book and lyrics of Eric Idle and the music of John Du Prez and Idle. It stars African American James Monroe Iglehart and features Nik Walker with a cast that is unbelievably zany. This is a musical you must plan to experience!
In December, Broadway began taking inclusion to another level with “How to Dance in Ohio” at the Belasco Theatre at W. 44th Street. This musical production, based on the documentary film of the same name by Alexandra Shiva, is a true story that introduces audiences to seven autistic young people navigating their way through life, school, and love.
It has a book and lyrics by Rebekah Greer Melocik, music by Jacob Yandura, and choreography by Mayte Natalio. Of its seven actors, all making their Broadway debuts, are two African Americans: Desmond Luis Edwards, who plays Remi, and Imani Russell, who plays Mel. It is absolutely captivating to watch this musical and these very talented young people telling the stories of what life is like as an autistic person.
“Hell’s Kitchen,” currently playing at the Public Theater, with plans to move to Broadway in 2024, is a musical that features Alicia Keyes songs and is loosely based on her life story growing up in Hell’s Kitchen in the artists’ building on W. 44th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues.
It is inspiring to watch this musical about this well-known and loved singer, and to experience the creative environment that she was fortunate enough to grow up in.
“Hell’s Kitchen” has a book by Kristoffer Diaz, hip hop choreography by Camille A. Brown, and direction by Michael Greif. It has an enormous, ethnically diverse cast, led by Maleah Joi Moon, who plays Ali and narrates the story for the audience. The singing and music are phenomenal. You can still try to get tickets before it goes to Broadway in the spring.
When you consider going to the theater, please always try to support our people in their theatrical endeavors. They are fantastic and dedicated, and it uplifts them as much as it does you when they can see their community in the audience. Black people are on Broadway, off-Broadway, in Black Theater companies, and displaying our craft with a pride that is beautiful to witness. Make 2024 the year that you go out and support Black theater. “The Wiz,” “Home,” “Hell’s Kitchen”— Broadway will have Black shows to offer. Plan to be in the room where they happen!