National Black Theatre is within the midst of a constructing itself a brand new house in Harlem — however then, the corporate has been within the enterprise of constructing a house for 55 years.
Listen to this week’s “Stagecraft” podcast beneath:
“Home has been an concept for Black African American tradition since we have been ripped from Africa,” stated Sade Lythcott, the CEO of National Black Theatre (NBT), on the brand new episode of Stagecraft, Variety’s theater podcast. “How will we create one thing with permanence and take a look at giving our group one thing it’s by no means had since Black people have been delivered to this nation from Africa, which is a real house?”
It’s a query NBT has been asking because it was based in 1968 by Lythcott’s mom, Dr. Barbara Ann Teer. Now, underneath the management of Lythcott and govt inventive director Jonathan McCrory, NBT is readying to construct a brand new, 21-story Harlem facility that may home a brand new theater complicated in addition to retail and inexpensive housing models.
Meanwhile, the theater is making a spot for itself on Broadway for the primary time with “Fat Ham” (pictured above), the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by James Ijames that NBT co-produced with the Public Theater final yr and can open on the American Airlines Theatre in April.
The play premiered initially in a 2021 video seize that was filmed at a time when most theaters have been nonetheless darkish on account of COVID-19. “‘Fat Ham’ was an antidote in a second after we all wanted it,” McCrory stated on Stagecraft. “We all wanted a second to be in pleasure and be in household and see one another smile and chortle once more. … [The play is] rigorously rooted inside Black tradition whereas additionally rigorously inspecting a western cultural icon, ‘Hamlet,’ whereas additionally rigorously inviting a household again collectively.”
Lythcott added, “In this time of tumult, as we mourn the deaths of Tyre Nichols and numerous Black our bodies, we predict part of that antidote is to inform the reality by the mechanism of pleasure. What our group deserves is a break.”
She continued, “For Black audiences, all too usually in these sorts of comedies on Broadway we discover ourselves in audiences the place we really feel like persons are laughing at us, not with us. ‘Fat Ham’ is a call-you-in second the place viewers of all shapes, colours, sizes, genders and sexuality can discover themselves in these characters. … We can let our guard down and be taught extra about one another.”
Also on the brand new episode of Stagecraft, Lythcott and McCrory look again on NBT’s long-term relationships with artists like Ijames and “Fat Ham” director Saheem Ali, discover the ins and outs of constructing the primary revenue-generating Black arts complicated within the nation, and clarify why NBT’s founder thought of the theater’s Harlem block — at Fifth Avenue and a hundred and twenty fifth Street — essentially the most well-known tackle on the planet.
To hear the complete dialog, hear on the hyperlink above or obtain and subscribe to “Stagecraft” on podcast platforms together with Apple Podcasts, Spotify and the Broadway Podcast Network. New episodes of “Stagecraft” are launched each different week.
