FAMU Essential Theatre is taking “From the Mississippi Delta” to Scotland. FAMU is the first HBCU to participate in the world’s largest arts festival in the world.
black theatre companies were allowing those voices to be heard.” During the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and ’30s, black theatre companies blossomed. Community theatres emerged during the 1930s as a result of the Federal Theatre Project. “Many of our greatest African-American personalities came out of the arts — Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, Lorraine Hansberry, August Wilson,” explained Haugabrook, who recalled fond childhood memories of attending traveling tent shows that toured in African-American communities. “My dad would never miss them. They made you laugh, told you jokes, and we were exposed to things we didn’t know black people could do. We saw them acting but also in other roles like putting up tents and selling shirts.” By the 1960s, there were nearly 300 black theaters, including those operated by universities. During the period of segregation, FAMU’s theatre program provided entertainment for African-American audiences who were not permitted to frequent local theatres that served the public or who had to sit in segregated sections. HBCUs also served as a haven for black theatre professionals who desired to write, produce and perform creative works without social limitations or boundaries. “This was a place where artists came to do their work and feel safe,” Matthews said. “They stayed at professors’ homes and moved freely on campus. They needed each other in order to survive. So that’s why we say we are essential.” Generations of African-American performers, producers, writers, set designers, stage managers, technical and marketing
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professionals and public school drama teachers have been trained in HBCU theatre programs. “While there may be limited exposure to black writers at predominantly white institutions, students at FAMU and other HBCUs get training that relates to their own experience and under the direction of people who understand and are sensitive to issues in ways that others may not be,” Wells said. FAMU’s list of successful theatre alumni is extensive, including: Ted Williams, a popular recurring character on the iconic television show “Good Times,” Meshach Taylor of “Designing Women” acclaim, Tony-Award winner Anika Noni Rose who also voiced the Princess Tianna character in Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog,” and Angela Robinson of Tyler Perry’s hit series “The Haves and the Have Nots.” Toi Whitaker created the set design for the “Let’s Make a Deal” daytime game show and Xavier Pierce is one of Hollywood’s top lighting designers. Haugabrook, who as a Sumter County Florida high school student performed in a dramatic arts competition at FAMU in 1948, said exposure to theatre helps offer FAMU students’ educational enrichment that goes beyond academics. “Theatre helps students complete the canvass of their personal mosaic because it brings so much of your experience to the stage. To see the classics demonstrated and illustrated by such sophisticated people on stage helps raise the level of expectation for yourself. It suggests they can be almost anything if they work hard enough.”