The Global Media Site for Entertainment.
Menu
In the United States and Canada, February is Black History Month. Diversity is what makes theatre great, and there have been so many trailblazing Black artists who have recently come to prominence. In honor of Black History Month here are just a few of the Black artists currently making a wave in theatre.
Jeremy O. Harris’s play, Slave Play, not only set the record for most Tony Award nominations for a non-musical play, but it also took the theatre world by storm. This provocative play covered themes of sexuality and racial identity. “The queer Black savior theatre needs,” as Out Magazine put it, Harris is carving a new path for BIPOC individuals in the theatre industry.
Referring to himself as “the living Michael Jackson,” Michael R. Jackson is the first Black male musical theatre writer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His musical, A Strange Loop, will premiere on Broadway in April. It tells the story of a fat, Black, gay writer navigating a heteronormative white world. The show also features an all-Black and queer ensemble.
The activist behind the Trans March on Broadway, Sis is currently playing Ado Annie in the American National Tour of Oklahoma! Breaking barriers as one of the first openly transgender performers to lead a Broadway tour, Sis also founded The Next Generation Project, which distributes resources to Black and brown trans people in need.
Douglas Lyons made his Broadway playwriting debut recently with Chicken & Biscuits, a heartwarming comedy centering around a Black family, which tragically closed early due to Covid. Lyons served as a writer and composer on Apple TV’s Fraggle Rock. He also is a performer, having previously appeared in The Book of Mormon and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.
Her play Pass Over was the first to open on Broadway when it returned from its hiatus, and with it came Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s Broadway debut. The play tells the story of Black men fearing being killed by the police. “We’ve told ourselves the story of Black man’s death too many times, we’ve seen it, so I want to tell the story of the Black man reborn,” she told the Amsterdam News.
These three men have successes in their own right. Reggie Van Lee is a successful businessman and philanthropist, T. Oliver Reid has spent the past 20 years on Broadway and Warren Adams is a writer, director, choreographer and producer. But together, the three men created something brilliant. They founded Black Theatre Coalition in 2019 to dismantle systematic racism within the theatre industry. Their mission is to increase the number of Black professionals within the theatre industry through partnerships. They also have introduced fellowships and apprenticeships.
These people are creating a better theatre world every single day. Instead of only celebrating them during Black History Month, we should be lifting up their voices every day as well, to create a better industry and world.
Temporary Broadway Closures Worry Unions
Tony Voters Will Have to Complete Unconscious Bias Training
© 2021 TheatreArtLife. All rights reserved.
Thank you so much for reading, but you have now reached your free article limit for this month.
Our contributors are currently writing more articles for you to enjoy.
To keep reading, all you have to do is become a subscriber and then you can read unlimited articles anytime.
Your investment will help us continue to ignite connections across the globe in live entertainment and build this community for industry professionals.
