The rich tradition and current state of Black Theatre is explored in this content, including discussions analyzing contemporary work and pieces honoring trailblazers. Consider starting with the Daughters of Lorraine podcast, the Journal series on the state of Black theatre, or the Journal series on Black women in the performing arts.
The Latest
Essay
Black Survival and Cyclical Fate in Hang Time
by Ciaran Short
4 June 2026
Video
Healing and Health: One Love Method Grounding Practices
A Racial-Justice Theatre Healing Session
Tuesday 9 June 2026
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Podcast
LOUD Queer Youth Theatre: Sustaining Youth-Led, Adult-Supported Arts Community
by Nicolas Shannon Savard, Keyshia Pearl, Roney Jones
A Community Salon to Center Blackness, Joy, and Truth-telling
Tuesday 14 July 2020
Minneapolis MN United States
Playwrights' Center presented BLACK MADE THAT livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Tuesday 14 July 2020 at 5 p.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC -7) / 6 p.m. MDT (Denver, UTC -6) / 7 p.m. CDT (Minneapolis, UTC -5) / 8 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4).
A symposium of queer Black community leaders who are dedicated to radical healing through communal acts of jubilation
Thursday 9 July 2020
Harlem NY United States
National Black Theatre presented The Revival Is Coming livestreamed on the global, commons-based, peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Thursday 9 July 2020 at 11:30 a.m. HST (Honolulu, UTC -10) / 1:30 p.m. AKDT (Juneau, UTC -8) / 2:30 p.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC -7) / 4:30 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 5:30 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4).
Join us as we talk with former I AM SOUL residents about envisioning a new future and exploring how to create radically free black spaces.
Thursday 2 July 2020
Harlem NY United States
National Black Theatre presented Black To The Future: Building a Tomorrow livestreamed on the global, commons-based, peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Thursday 2 July 2020 at 11:30 a.m. HST (Honolulu, UTC -10) / 1:30 p.m. AKDT (Juneau, UTC -8) / 2:30 p.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC -7) / 4:30 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 5:30 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4).
Todd London reflects on why and how we gather, and looks at the canons-in-the-making of four African American playwrights—Jackie Sibblies Drury, Aleshea Harris, Anna Deavere Smith, and Dael Orlandersmith—for how they serve as a map for this moment of revision.
An ancestral healing tele-protest to extend the resilience of Detroit and Flint artists to the multiverse of the global Black movement
Friday 19 June 2020
Untied States
La MaMa and CultureHub presented Downtown Variety: Juneteenth livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Friday 19 June 2020 at 2 p.m. HST (Honolulu, UTC -10) / 4 p.m. AKDT (Juneau, UTC -8) / 5 p.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC -7) / 6 p.m. MDT (Denver, UTC -6) 7 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 8 p.m. EDT (Detroit, UTC -4).
Al Heartley and Kelvin Dinkins, Jr., Black theatre managers who work in predominantly white American theatres, respond to the recent “solidarity” statements posted by theatres across the country after George Floyd was killed.
A Hip Hop remix of Alice in Wonderland that explores the concepts of structural violence, anti-blackness, memory, and self-discovery.
Friday 8 May 2020
Takoma, Washington, USA
The University of Puget Sound’s Projects in Dramaturgy: “Politics & Praxis of Rememory” class presented the virtual reading of Aaliyah in Underland by Wind Dell Woods on the global, commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Friday 8 May 2020 at 12 p.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC-7) / 2 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC-5) / 3 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC-4) / 20:00 BST (London, UTC+1) / 21:00 CEST (Berlin, UTC+2).
For the final episode of the first season of the Daughters of Lorraine Podcast, Jordan Ealey and Leticia Ridley interview dramaturg and director Otis Cortez Ramsey-Zoë about his work in the Washington DC area, as well as his general thoughts about the state of and stakes for Black theatre.
On Being a Black Playwright in the American Theatre
19 January 2020
Playwright Aleshea Harris reflects on the tensions of being a Black theatremaker and "negotiating bodily presence" in a speech at the 2020 Under the Radar Festival Professional Symposium.
Pearl Cleage and Vera Starbard in Conversation, Part II
15 January 2020
In part two of their conversation, Vera Starbard and Pearl Cleage—playwrights-in-residence at Juneau, Alaska’s Perseverance Theatre and Atlanta, Georgia’s Alliance Theatre, respectively—talk about different cultural practices, the white gaze, moving away from anger, and more.
Pearl Cleage and Vera Starbard in Conversation, Part I
14 January 2020
In part one of their conversation, playwrights Vera Starbard and Pearl Cleage talk about their respective residencies—at Juneau, Alaska’s Perseverance Theatre and Atlanta, Georgia’s Alliance Theatre, respectively—race and representation at their institutions, not writing for a white audience, and more.
Jordan Ealey and Leticia Ridley discuss the transformative power of Aleshea Harris' What to Send Up When it Goes Down by centering Black rage, ritual, and healing on this episode of the Daughters of Lorraine podcast.
In this episode of the Daughters of Lorraine Podcast, Jordan Ealey and Leticia Ridley focus on representations of slavery on stage by Black playwrights beginning from the early 19th century to the 1960s.
On this episode of the Daughters of Lorraine Podcast, Jordan Ealey and Leticia Ridley review Arena Stage's production of August Wilson’s Jitney, directed by Black theatre legend, Ruben Santiago-Hudson.
at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center in New York City
Monday 18 November 2019
New York City
The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center presented Africana Dance Dramaturgies: How Do We Represent? livestreamed on the commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv Monday 18 November 2019 at 6:30 p.m. EST (New York, UTC -5) / 3:30 p.m. PST (Los Angeles, UTC -8) / 23:30 GMT (London, UTC +0)
For this episode of the Daughters of Lorraine Podcast, Jordan Ealey and Leticia Ridley focus on the histories and enduring legacies of lynching dramas, covering early twentieth century history of Black women playwrights using theatre for protest ends, and situating them in Black feminism and Black radical tradition.
On this first episode of Daughters of Lorraine Podcast, Leticia Ridley and Jordan Ealey discuss Woolly Mammoth's production of Fairview by Jackie Sibbilies Drury, its theoretical and theatrical interventions, as well as situate it in the historical and cultural contexts of Black theatre.
Linda Parris-Bailey and Diane Rodriguez talk about their own leadership transitions and what’s next, gender, race, and economic barriers; documenting work; and more.
Color Arc Productions and The VORTEX presented a performance of The Mamalogues livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer-produced HowlRound TV network on Friday 30 August 2019 at 9 p.m. EDT (New York) / 8 p.m. CDT (Chicago) / 6 p.m. PDT (Los Angeles).
Nicole Brewer examines a prominent racist policy in theatre—when plays written by people of color are staged by white directors—through the lens of actors, theatregoers, and playwrights themselves.
Tara Brooke Watkins discusses how Oklahoma! has shaped the state’s cultural identity, the Tulsa Race Massacre, and Spinning Plates’s production of the musical with an all-black cast.
Urban Bush Women presented the 2019 Summer Leadership Institute Culminating Performance livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Saturday 20 July at 4 p.m. EDT (New York) / 3 p.m. CDT (Chicago) / 1 p.m. PDT (Los Angeles), and then again at 7:315 p.m. EDT (New York) / 6:15 p.m. CDT (Chicago) / 4:15 p.m. (Los Angeles).
