NOTES FROM THE CURATORIAL TEAM
We are living in some critical times, where our culture and history are being reshaped and retold through a lens that robs, erases, and distorts the impact of Black culture on society, which denies us the ability to fully share the dynamic nuances housed in the American story. In this moment, it is essential that we invest our time and energy into amplifying and supporting programs curated to resist the systemic banning, erasure, and silencing of our narratives, while remembering that gathering and sharing information is itself a revolutionary act. That is why for the past 12 years, National Black Theatre has been leading the charge in a nationwide conversation to restore, sustain, and expand the impact of Black theater and its practitioners through our signature program, Catalyst. Today marks the continuation of that work as we join forces with Park Avenue Armory to present Black Theater Advance: A Salon Inspired by Catalyst & the Future of Black Theater. A gathering that is a day-long celebration of keynotes, workshops, artistic interventions, and dynamic exchanges designed to build on the momentum of our 2023 convening at the Ford Foundation: Catalyst: Seeding the Permanence of Black Theatre and the New Vanguard.
That national gathering brought together nearly 70 Black theatermakers, institutions, funders, and cultural strategists to assess the current state of Black Theatre and chart a shared path forward. Building on the legacy of our original 2013 convening, Catalyst: Moving the Black Theatre Legacy Forward, the 2023 gathering responded to a transformed yet still inequitable landscape shaped by pandemic aftershocks, fleeting investment, and the enduring labor of Black cultural producers.
With this foundation, we invite you to dive in. Today is about infusing more voices, perspectives, and bold ideas into the conversation—tackling questions of belonging, ecosystem building, cultural protection, and the rights of Black theater practitioners. Your ACTIVE participation in today’s sessions will help shape the strategies and solutions we need for the future.
Gathering has always been a vital tradition in the Black community, a way to dream together, strategize together, and build together. This salon lives in that tradition, bringing together some of the brightest minds in the field to address the urgent need for new frameworks that move beyond visibility toward permanence: rethinking infrastructure, funding models, and community engagement. What emerges today will deepen our shared blueprint for a thriving, interconnected Black theater ecosystem rooted in cultural capital, care, and collective responsibility.
Key strategies guiding our work include:
• Mapping the national Black theater ecosystem as an interdependent network rather than a hierarchy of scarcity.
• Shifting from “safe spaces” to caring, accountable spaces that nurture creativity and truth-telling.
• Seeding permanence through targeted investment, elder care, cultural preservation, new work development, and archival access.
• Building collaborative platforms for creative and professional exchange, mentorship, and mutual aid.
• Establishing new metrics of value that honor cultural capital—not just market value—as a foundation for support.
• Evolving Catalyst into a long-term strategic network connecting local practice to national impact through advocacy, resource sharing, and visionary planning.
Catalyst affirms this truth: Black theater is not a trend or an exception— it is a cornerstone of American culture. Today we celebrate that fact boldly, and we call on all stakeholders to commit not just to recognition, but to deep, sustained investment. Through the work of Catalyst, and the ideas sparked here today, we aim to offer both a provocation and a practical guide to be studied, activated, and built upon for generations to come.
— Sade Lycott, National Black Theatre CEO, and Jonathan McCrory, Executive Artistic Director of National Black Theatre
It is my honor to welcome you to Park Avenue Armory for Black Theater Advance, a day-long salon inspired by the Catalyst 2023 gathering and forthcoming publication, and dedicated to the future of Black theater that living document demands. At the Armory, our Public Programs have long been dedicated to amplifying voices, practices, and communities that reimagine culture as a site of civic engagement. This gathering continues that mission by providing a platform for bold exchange, artistic intervention, and collective visioning at a time when Black stories and Black cultural labor remain under threat of erasure. We are grateful to join with our colleagues at the National Black Theatre, whose visionary Catalyst program has seeded a national conversation around the permanence and expansion of Black theater. Together, we recognize that convening is not only an artistic practice but an act of daring imagination in the revolutionary Spirit of 1776. While the final manifestos will be released later this fall, the micro-commissions gathered here remind us that the work of Black theater is always live, provisional, and in motion. Today is an opportunity to engage with these works in real time, to interact with artists and stakeholders, and to help shape the future they are boldly imagining. Today’s event builds on the public program’s proud history of partnering with cornerstone institutions of New York’s cultural and civic life— including the Apollo Theater, Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and now once again National Black Theatre. Each of these collaborations has underscored our belief that the arts are not an adjunct to society, but one of its most vital infrastructures. Black Theater Advance asks us to think and act with that urgency: to map an interdependent ecosystem, to seed permanence through investment, and to hold one another in caring and accountable spaces. As you join in the keynotes, workshops, and interventions that shape this salon, I invite you to see yourself as part of this living blueprint. Together, we affirm that Black theater is not only central to the American story, but also to its future.
— Tavia Nyong’o, Park Avenue Armory Curator of Public Programming and Scholar-in-Residence
MAKING SPACE AT THE ARMORY BLACK THEATER ADVANCE:
A SALON INSPIRED BY CATALYST AND THE FUTURE OF BLACK THEATER
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2025 FROM 1PM TO 7PM veterans room
Co-Curated and Co-Presented by Park Avenue Armory and National Black Theatre
Making Space at the Armory is made possible with support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF).
Bloomberg Philanthropies is Park Avenue Armory’s 2025 Season Sponsor. Leadership support for the Armory’s artistic programming has been generously provided by the Anita K. Hersh Philanthropic Fund, Charina Endowment Fund, Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust, the Pinkerton Foundation, the Starr Foundation, and the Thompson Family Foundation. Major support was also provided by the Emily Davie and Joseph S. Kornfeld Foundation, the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Howard Gilman Foundation, the Marc Haas Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, the SHS Foundation, and Wescustogo Foundation. Additional support has been provided by the Armory’s Artistic Council. Public support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature as well as the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council under the leadership of Speaker Adrienne Adams.
Cover image by Elliott Jerome Brown Jr.
SCHEDULE
SESSION 1
1PM TO 3PM
Creative Offering
With musician, artist, lyricist, and abolitionist Samora Pinderhughes
Opening Remarks
By Curator of Public Programming and Scholar-in-Residence at Park Avenue Armory Tavia Nyong’o, National Black Theatre CEO Sade Lythcott, and National Black Theatre Executive Artistic Director Jonathan McCrory
Keynote Address with Fireside Chat
Art history and policy specialist and academic and museum administrator Mary Schmidt Campbell gives a Keynote Address followed by Fireside Chat with National Black Theatre CEO Sade Lythcott
Workshop: Ecosystem Building
With Obie award-winning actress and writer Nikkole Salter
SESSION
2
3PM TO 5PM
Creative Offering
With singer-songwriter Imani Uzuri
Fireside Chat
Executive Producer at the Apollo Theater Kamilah Forbes in conversation with spoken word artist, writer, and cultural strategist Marc Bamuthi Joseph
Workshop: Building a Black Theatre Bill of Rights
With multi-disciplinary artist, director, and cultural strategist Ebony Noelle Golden
SESSION 3
5PM TO 7PM
Creative Offering
With New York-based singer, songwriter, and educator Nicholas Ryan Gant
Keynote Address with Fireside Chat
Award-winning performer and playwright Jordan E. Cooper gives a Keynote Address followed by Fireside Chat with Executive Artistic Director of National Black Theatre Jonathan McCrory
Closing reception
MANIFESTO
SIX THEATRICAL
PRACTITIONERS
ENVISION THE FUTURE OF BLACK THEATER
Park Avenue Armory and National Black Theatre have co-commissioned six theatrical practitioners to author manifestos that envision bold futures for Black theater and the sector at large. These manifestos will be inspired by each artist’s attendance at the 2023 Catalyst convening, the executive summary of findings from the 2023 convening, their personal vantage point from which they interact with the sector, and today’s workshops and conversations.
IFA BAYEZA
Ifa Bayeza is an award-winning playwright, director, composer and novelist. Her plays include the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award-winner Homer G & the Rhapsodies in The Fall of Detroit; String Theory; Welcome to Wandaland; Infants of the Spring; musicals Charleston Olio; Bunk Johnson ...a blues poem; Kid Zero; and THE TILL TRILOGY (The Ballad of Emmett Till, That Summer in Sumner, Benevolence). Winner of the 2020 Roy Cockrum Foundation Award, THE TILL TRILOGY made its national debut at Mosaic Theatre Company of DC in 2022, running in rotating repertory. Her debut novel, Some Sing, Some Cry was co-authored with her sister Ntozake Shange. Other awards/accolades: finalist, 2020 Herb Alpert Award and 2020 Francesca Primus Prize; inaugural NEH Humanistin-Residence in 2019; recipient, two National Trust for Historic Preservation commissions; 2022 MacDowell fellow; 2024 Kennedy Center Theatre Resident. BA, Harvard; MFA, UMass Amherst.
SAGE CRUMP
Sage Crump is a culture strategist, artist, and movement facilitator who expands and deepens the relationship between the cultural sector and social justice organizing. Member of Complex Movements, a multidisciplinary Detroit-based artist collective supporting local and translocal visionary organizing. Principal and Co-Founder of The Kinfolks Effect (TKE), an incubation space for multimedia immersive installation work examining the movement of Blackness through time and space. Other positions: Director of Racial Justice and Movement Building, National Performance Network; Inaugural Cultural Strategy Fellow, The Opportunity Agenda (2019 Cultural Strategy Toolkit); former Co-Director, Emergent Strategies Ideation Institute; former member, LeftRoots; member, Guild of Future Architects and Women of Color in the Arts; board member with the Center for Cultural Innovation, Art2Action, and Mark-n-Sparks. Crump recently completed a 10-year initiative on the development of liberatory infrastructure and released the Mixed Metaphor Toolkit in 2023.
INDIA HAGGINS
India Haggins is the Account Director and Head of Audience Growth at SpotCo, where she leads innovative campaigns that build community, drive ticket sales, and expand access to the arts. A Harlem native with over 22 years of experience across the entertainment industry, Haggins has dedicated her career to connecting multicultural audiences to dance, music, and theater. She leads SpotCo’s audience development efforts for Roundabout Theatre Company and Lincoln Center Theater, including campaigns for FLEX, The Blood Quilt, The Refuge Plays, and Liberation. Broadway credits: Dead Outlaw, Fat Ham, Death of a Salesman, SUFFS, HOME, English, McNeal, Floyd Collins. Previous roles at New York City Center, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and Jazz at Lincoln Center. BA Economics, Bucknell University; MA Performing Arts Management, Brooklyn College. Member, Broadway League’s Black to Broadway Subcommittee.
PATRICIA MCGREGOR
Patricia McGregor is Artistic Director of New York Theatre Workshop and a renowned director and writer working in theater, film, dance, and music. Select productions: The Refuge Plays (Roundabout, NYTW); The Last of the Love Letters (Atlantic); Ugly Lies the Bone (Roundabout); Blood Dazzler (Harlem Stage); Lights Out: Nat “King” Cole (co-writer, director; Geffen Playhouse, People’s Light, NYTW); Shakespeare: Call and Response, Krapp’s Last Tape, What You Are, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Measure for Measure (Old Globe); Good Grief (CTG); Hamlet (The Public); Place (BAM); brownsville song (LCT); Indomitable: James Brown (Apollo); Holding It Down (Met Museum); A Four Electric Ghosts (The Kitchen); Hurt Village (Signature); among others. Other positions: Director, HBO emerging writer’s showcase; tour consultant, Raphael Saadiq and J. Cole; Associate Director, Fela! (Broadway); director, The 24 Hour Plays (Broadway); Co-Founder, Angela’s Pulse. Alumna, SMU/Yale School of Drama.
STEVIE WALKER-WEBB
Stevie Walker-Webb is a Tony Award-nominated, Obie Award-winning Broadway director, playwright, and cultural worker who believes in the transformational power of art. He is Artistic Director of Baltimore Center Stage and his work has been produced on and off-Broadway, including AIN’T NO MO’ (The Public/Broadway). He is founder of HUNDREDSofTHOUSANDS, an arts and advocacy organization that makes visual the suffering and inhumane treatment of incarcerated mentally ill people. He has received the Princess Grace Award for Theatre, The Lily Award from the Dramatists Guild of America, and is a 2050 Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop. Other roles include: Contributing Writer, BET’s THE MS. PAT SHOW; Visiting Artist and Lecturer, Harvard University; Founding Artistic Director, the Jubilee Theatre in Waco, Texas. Walker-Webb has created art and theater in Madagascar, South Africa, Mexico, and across America.
ADRIENNE WARREN
Adrienne Warren recently starred as Cathy in The Last Five Years on Broadway opposite Nick Jonas. She previously originated the role of Tina Turner in TINA – The Tina Turner Musical (Broadway, West End; Tony, Drama Desk, Antonyo, Outer Critics awards; Olivier, Evening Standard Award noms). Other Broadway credits: Shuffle Along (Tony, Chita Rivera, Fred Astaire nom.), Bring It On: The Musical, The Wiz (Encores!), Dreamgirls (The Apollo; NAACP Theatre Award nom.).
In 2024, she made her solo Carnegie Hall debut with the New York Pops. Select film/TV credits: Netflix’s Rustin; Hulu’s Black Cake; Sony Pictures’ The Woman King; ABC’s Women of the Movement Co-Founder, Broadway Advocacy Coalition (BAC), which uses arts and storytelling to build a more equitable society, while building the collective capacity of individuals, organizations, and coalitions to do the same (honorary Tony Award 2021). Voice, Maybelline New York. Graduate, Governor’s School for the Arts.
ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS
DR. MARY SCHMIDT CAMPBELL
Mary Schmidt Campbell, PhD, is President Emerita of Spelman College. An art historian and former curator, she previously served as Executive Director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, NYC Commissioner of Cultural Affairs, and Dean of NYU Tisch. President Barack Obama appointed her Vice Chair of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she chairs the Doris Duke Foundation board, sits on several nonprofit boards, and is a member of the UBS Americas Advisory Council. She lectures and publishes widely, including An American Odyssey: The Life and Work of Romare Bearden (Oxford University Press, 2018) and Sam Gilliam (Phaidon Press, 2024). BA English Literature Swarthmore; MA Art History, Syracuse; PhD Humanities, Syracuse.
JORDAN E. COOPER
Jordan E. Cooper is an Obie-Award winning performer/playwright who was chosen to be one of Out Magazine’s “Entertainers of the Year” and Forbes “30 Under 30” in 2024. Cooper was also featured on the final season of FX’s groundbreaking series Pose as MC Tyrone. He is the creator and showrunner of the Emmy-nominated sitcom The Ms. Pat Show. Cooper became the youngest American playwright in Broadway history with his Tony-award nominated musical Ain’t No Mo’ (2022). Other credits include: Oh Happy Day! (Baltimore Center Stage 2024, The Public Theater 2025).
KAMILAH FORBES
Kamilah Forbes is the Executive Producer of The Apollo and an esteemed award-winning director and producer for theater and television. She has received awards for both directing and producing, including the 2019 NBTF Larry Laon Hamlin Producer Award and an NAACP Image Award. Directing credits include: Between the World and Me, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, Blood Quilt, Sunset Baby; The Wiz Live, A Raisin in the Sun, Mountaintop, Stick Fly (Broadway); Between the World and Me (HBO); Hippest Trip – The Soul Train Musical (American Conservatory Theater); among others. She has produced several works for television, most notably the seventh season of HBO’s Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry.
NICHOLAS RYAN GANT
Nicholas Ryan Gant (NRG) is a New York based singer, songwriter, and educator. NRG works as a music teacher in New York City schools and an internationally sought-after vocal coach. He has provided support vocals for acclaimed artists including Mariah Carey, Jon Batiste, Run the Jewels, Sy Smith, Childish Gambino, Miri Ben-Ari, and Michael McDonald. NRG is inspired by musicians across genres including Leontyne Price, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, The Clark Sisters, Prince, Whitney Houston, D’angelo, and Brandy. His online vintage shop, SAINT NICHOLAS VINTAGE, highlights his passion for urban vintage apparel. Opera, Howard University; MA Music Education, Hunter College (Lincoln Center Scholars).
EBONY NOELLE GOLDEN
Artist, scholar, and culture strategist Ebony Noelle Golden devises and directs site-specific ceremonies, live art installations, and environmental experiments that activate the throughline of Black liberation. Recent credits: The Divining: Ceremonies from in the name of the m/other tree (Apollo Theater/NBT, 2024); presentations at Weeksville Heritage Center, Double Edge Theatre, The Shed, and Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance. Awards: Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New England Foundation for the Arts, Creative Capital, NYSCA, LMCC grants; Cave Canem fellowships; MacDowell, Yaddo residencies. Other roles: inaugural SOUL Directing Resident, National Black Theatre; inaugural Skylab Artist-in-Residence, Hi-ARTS; Founder and CEO, Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative and Jupiter Performance Studio. BA, Texas A&M; MA, NYU; MFA, American.
MARC BAMUTHI JOSEPH
Bamuthi is a 2017 TED Global Fellow; an inaugural recipient of the Guggenheim Social Practice initiative; an honoree of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship; winner of the Herb Alpert Award in Theatre; and an inaugural recipient of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. In Spring 2022, he was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was most recently welcomed into the 2023-24 Emerson Collective Dial Fellowship. An internationally renowned cultural strategist, Bamuthi is Co-Creator of the paradigmshifting allyship training HEALING FORWARD™. He has lectured in 25 different countries and his TED talk “You Have The Rite” has been viewed over five million times. Bamuthi is represented by SOZO.
SADE LYTHCOTT
National Black Theatre CEO Sade Lythcott has led the organization to fiscal stability, established a programmatic reach across the nation and abroad, and bolstered resources provided to Black artists as they hone their voice. Daughter of the late Dr. Barbara Ann Teer, Lythcott builds on the theater’s 50-year commitment to telling authentic stories of the Black experience. Other roles include: Chairperson, Coalition of Theaters of Color; National Board of Advisors, Art in a Changing America and HueArts NYC; member, New York State on Governor’s Task Force to reopen live performance; Co-Lead, NYC Mayor-Elect’s Transition Team on Parks, Art, & Culture; Co-Lead, Culture @ 3; Inaugural Member, Black Genius Brain Trust.
JONATHAN MCCRORY
Jonathan McCrory is a Tony-Award winning, two-time Obie Award-winning, and Emmy-nominated Harlem-based artist who has served as Executive Artistic Director at National Black Theatre since 2012. He has directed numerous professional productions and concerts. Awards and acknowledgments include: Exceptional Leader, Crain’s New York Business 2020 Notable LGBTQ Leaders and Executives; 2013 Emerging Producer Award, National Black Theatre Festival; Torch Bearer Award, awarded by Woodie King Jr. Other positions include: founding member of Harlem9, Black Theatre Commons, The Jubilee, Next Generation National Network, and The Movement Theatre Company; National Advisory Committee, Howlround.com; original cohort member, ArtEquity. Alumnus, Duke Ellington School of the Arts and NYU Tisch.
TAVIA NYONG’O
Tavia Nyong’o is a scholar and curator of performance. He is the author of The Amalgamation Waltz: Race, Performance, and the Ruses of Memory (2009), which won the Erroll Hill Award for Best Book in Black Performance Studies; and Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life (2018), which won the Barnard Hewitt Award for Best Book in Theater and Performance Studies. He writes regularly for Frieze, Artforum, The Baffler, and other venues. He is Chair and Wiliam Lampson Professor of Theater and Performance Studies at Yale and Curator of Public Programming and Scholar-in-Residence at Park Avenue Armory. He was recently awarded a 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship in Theatre Arts and Performance.
SAMORA PINDERHUGHES
Samora Pinderhughes is a musician, multidisciplinary artist, composer, and filmmaker as well as Founder and Artistic & Executive Director of the abolitionist organization The Healing Project. Awards: Chamber Music America 2020 Visionary, United States Artist, Emmy, Black Star Festival 2021 Best Experimental Film, Creative Capital awards; Art for Justive + Soros Justice, Sundance Composers fellowships; MoMA Adobe Creative, Joe’s Pub residencies. Collaborations: Herbie Hancock, Common, Sara Bareilles, Daveed Diggs, Kyle Abraham, Branford Marsalis, Robert Glasper, among others. Commissions: Carnegie Hall, Sundance, The Apollo. Exhibited by: The Kitchen, San Jose Art Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Brooklyn Museum. Film scores: Whose Streets?, Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project. Albums: The Transformations Suite, GRIEF, Venus Smiles Not in the House of Tears, Black Spring.
NIKKOLE SALTER
Nikkole Salter is an actress, playwright, director, and educator. Her In the Continuum, co-written and performed with Danai Gurira, earned an Obie and the Outer Critics Circle’s John Gassner Award. Other acting credits include appearances at Berkeley Rep, the Shakespeare Theatre, Lincoln Center, Arena Stage, US regional theaters, film, television, and video games. Playwriting work includes Repairing a Nation; Carnaval; and Grace with Nolan Williams Jr; among others. She made her directorial debut with Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill (Baltimore Center Stage). Salter is Co-Founder of The Continuum Project, Inc. and Chair of Theatre Arts at Howard University. Her pending book, Embodiment: The Practical Craft, Esoteric Art and Spiritual Tool of Acting, explores indigenous and contemporary acting theory.
IMANI UZURI
Imani Uzuri, raised in rural North Carolina, is an award-winning vocalist, composer, librettist, improviser, and conceptual artist. She composes, performs and creates interdisciplinary works including concerts, ritual performances, albums, sound installations and compositions for chamber ensembles, voice and theater (including experimental and musical theater). She has served as a Jerome Foundation Composer/Sound Artist Fellow, Camargo Foundation (Cassis, France) Composer- in-Residence, and HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP) Fellow. Uzuri has been commissioned by Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, The Ford Foundation, Harvard Fromm Players and her recent Chamber Music America New Jazz Works commission She Knows Suite premiered at Lincoln Center Atrium. MFA, Goddard College Vermont; MA African American Studies, Columbia University.
PRODUCTION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Aliyah Curry Stage Manager
Jonah Rosenberg Audio Engineer
SPECIAL THANKS
Ezza Ezzard
Crossroads Theatre Company
Shadawn N. Smith
The Billie Holiday Theatre
Lauren Britt-Elmore
The Flea Theater
National Black Theatre extends deep gratitude to the individuals who contributed to the December 2023 convening of Catalyst: Seeding Permanence for Black Theatre and the New Vanguard at the Ford Foundation, helping to make it such a powerful opportunity.
Darren Walker, Margaret Morton, Lane Sugata, Juliet Mureriwa, Patrick O’Connell, Carly Machado, Alise Green Ford Foundation
Talvin Wilks, Sydnie Mahone, Faedra Chatard Carpenter, Jonathan McCrory, Sade Lythcott, Dara Sharif Catalyst Report Writer/Editors
Aalythia Stevens, Adrienne Becker, Alia Jones Harvey, Ashley Ferro Murray, Britton Smith, Brittany Davis, Chandra Stephens Albright, Cheryl Duncan, Chris Berry, Claudia Alick, Clarissa Vickerie, Dafina McMillan, Dominique Morriseau, Dominic Taylor, Dottie Cannon, Eileen Morris, Elizabeth Van Dyke, Ekundayo Bandele, Faedra Chatard Carpenter, Freedom Bradley-Balentine, geoffrey jackson scott, Glen Davis, Hana Shariff, Helga Davis, Honey Crawford, Ifa Bayeza, India Haggins, Isabel Quinzanos Alonso, Jamil Jude, Jessica Solomon, Jonathan McCrory, Kamilah Forbes, Kelley Girod, LaChanze, Lane Sugata, LaTeisha Emerson, Lauren Britt-Elmore, Lisa Yancey, Lynn Nottage, Maurine Knighten, Mandesia Sibiya, Margaret Morton, Michael R. Jackson, Nataki Garrett Myers, Ngozi Anyanwu, nicHi douglas, Nikkole Salters, Nona Hendryx, Omete Anaisi, Patricia McGregor, Qween Jean, Raekwon Fuller, Rashad V. Chambers, Sade Lythcott, Sage Crump, Samuel Morreale, Sarah Bellamy, Sonya Houston, Shadawn Smith, Shay Wayfer, Stephanie Mckee, Stephanie Ybarra, Stevie Walker Webb, Sydnie Mahone, Talvin Wilks, Tonya Lillard, Witney White, Yvonne Joyner Participants, Catalyst: Seeding Permanence for Black Theatre and the New Vanguard
ABOUT NATIONAL BLACK THEATRE
Founded in 1968 by Dr. Barbara Ann Teer, an award-winning performer, director, visionary entrepreneur, and champion of the Black Arts Movement, National Black Theatre (NBT) is a Tony Award-winning, Emmy-nominated institution with a groundbreaking legacy: the country’s first revenue-generating Black art complex, the longest continually run Black theater in New York City, and one of the oldest theaters founded and consistently operated by a woman of color. Since its inception, NBT has invested over $10 million in 350+ original works by Black artists and earned accolades including a Tony Award and an Emmy nomination, New York Times Critics’ Picks, Obie Awards, Lortel Awards, Audelco Awards, and a Drama Desk nomination. NBT is also part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and is apart of the National Portrait Gallery.
More than five decades later, NBT’s mission endures. Today, it expands that vision to educate, enrich, entertain, empower, and spark national dialogue around the needed narrative change to shift the impact and complexity surrounding social justice topics within our society. In 2023, NBT made Broadway history with the transfer and co-production of James Ijames’s Pulitzer Prize-winning and Tony nominated FAT HAM, becoming only the third Black theater company ever to do so. The following season, NBT won its first Tony Award for the revival of Purlie Victorious
Grounded in the principles of ownership, self-determination, and human transformation, NBT continues to champion Black artists and break new ground, including a partnership with the National Black Theatre of Sweden. Its achievements have secured its place at the forefront of theater innovation and advocacy, leveraging its voice for sector-wide reform, local policy, and funding equity. NBT is an AEA Equity house and a proud member of Theatre Communications Group, A.R.T./New York, Harlem Arts Alliance, and the Coalition of Theatres of Color.
Under the leadership of CEO Sade Lythcott, daughter of NBT’s founder, and Executive Artistic Director Jonathan McCrory, NBT remains rooted in its Liberationist spirit, alive to the pulse of the present, and committed to catalyzing a collective creative future.
ABOUT CATALYST
National Black Theatre’s Catalyst initiative was founded in 2013 by CEO Sade Lythcott and Executive Artistic Director Jonathan McCrory to address the social impact and historical complexity of Black theater, as well as create a space for Black theater artists and administrators to connect, ideate, and enact meaningful change in the sector. Previous Catalyst programming has included: State of Black Theatre, a series of essays curated by McCrory and published on Howlround.com; Catalyst: Moving the Black Theatre Legacy Forward, a 2013 convening focused on capitalization, infrastructure, and the long-term viability of Black theater institutions and business practices; and the 2023 convening, Catalyst: Seeding the Permanence of Black Theatre and the New Vanguard, making a decade of the Catalyst initiative and bringing together diverse groups to discuss how Black theater is produced, marketed, and funded.
NEXT FROM NATIONAL BLACK THEATRE
LEGACY
IN LAYERS: THE FORMATION OF OUR ROOTS
NOVEMBER 13 & 20
National Black Theatre partners with The Hempisheric Institute for Legacy in Layers: The Formation of our Roots November 13 and 20, 2025 at 20 Cooper Square. Founded in 1968, National Black Theatre has been a driving force in shaping Black culture and creativity. Join us for an exclusive celebration, through three events, showcasing rare artifacts—from digital archives to manuscripts and photographs— now being preserved through our groundbreaking partnership with the Hemispheric Institute. This is your chance to experience the rich legacy of Black theater and be part of a powerful tribute to the stories that continue to inspire and ignite change.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Board Chair
Michael F. Lythcott
Treasurer Linara Davidson
Secretary Velma Banks
Members
De’Ara Balenger
Denise Bradley-Tyson
Anthony Roth Costanzo
David Alan Grier
Alia Jones-Harvey
Zoë Kravitz
Leslie Odom, Jr.
Tracey Ryans
Cleo Wade
Jonathan Wiggins
Michelle Wilson
ABOUT PARK AVENUE ARMORY
Part palace, part industrial shed, Park Avenue Armory supports unconventional works in the performing and visual arts that cannot be fully realized in a traditional proscenium theater, concert hall, or white wall gallery. With its soaring 55,000-square-foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall—reminiscent of 19th-century European train stations—and an array of exuberant period rooms, the Armory provides a platform for artists to push the boundaries of their practice, collaborate across disciplines, and create new work in dialogue with the historic building. Across its grand and intimate spaces, the Armory enables a diverse range of artists to create, students to explore, and audiences to experience epic, adventurous, relevant work that cannot be done elsewhere in New York.
The Armory both commissions and presents performances and installations in the grand Drill Hall and offers more intimate programming through its acclaimed Recital Series, which showcases musical talent from across the globe within the salon setting of the Board of Officers Room; its Artists Studio series curated by Jason Moran in the restored Veterans Room; Making Space at the Armory, a public programming series that brings together a discipline-spanning group of artists and cultural thought-leaders around the important issues of our time; and the Malkin Lecture Series that features presentations by scholars and writers on topics related to Park Avenue Armory and its history. In addition, the Armory also has a year-round Artists-in-Residence program, providing space and support for artists to create new work and expand their practices.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
The Armory’s creativity-based arts education programs provide access to the arts to thousands of students from underserved New York City public schools, engaging them with the institutions artistic programming and outside-the-box creative processes. Through its education initiatives, the Armory provides access to all Drill Hall performances, workshops taught by Master Teaching Artists, and in-depth residencies that support the schools’ curriculum. Youth Corps, the Armory’s year-round paid internship program, begins in high school and continues into the critical post-high school years, providing interns with mentored employment, job training, and skill development, as well as a network of peers and mentors to support their individual college and career goals.
The Armory is undergoing a multi-phase renovation and restoration of its historic building led by architects Herzog & de Meuron, with Platt Byard Dovell White as Executive Architects.
ABOUT PUBLIC PROGRAMMING AT THE ARMORY
Park Avenue Armory’s Public Programming series brings diverse artists and cultural thought-leaders together for discussion and performance around the important issues of our time viewed through an artistic lens. Launched in 2017, the series encompasses a variety of programs including large-scale community events; multi-day symposia; intimate salons featuring performances, panels, and discussions; Artist Talks in relation to the Armory’s Drill Hall programming; and other creative interventions, curated by professor and scholar Tavia Nyong’o
Highlights from the Public Programming series include: Carrie Mae Weems’ 2017 event The Shape of Things and 2021 convening and concert series Land of Broken Dreams, whose participants included Elizabeth Alexander, Theaster Gates, Elizabeth Diller, Nona Hendryx, Somi, and Spike Lee, among others; a daylong Lenape Pow Wow and Standing Ground Symposium held in the Wade Thompson Drill Hall, the first congregation of Lenape Elders on Manhattan Island since the 1700s; “A New Vision for Justice in America” conversation series in collaboration with Common Justice, exploring new coalitions, insights, and ways of understanding question of justice and injustice in relation moderated by FLEXN Evolution creators Reggie (Regg Roc) Gray and director Peter Sellars; Culture in a Changing America Symposia exploring the role of art, creativity, and imagination in the social and political issues in American society today; the 2019 Black Artists Retreat hosted by Theaster Gates, which included public talks and performances, private sessions for the 300 attending artists, and a roller skating rink; 100 Years | 100 Women, a multiorganization commissioning project that invited 100 women artists and cultural creators to respond to women’s suffrage; a Queer Hip Hop Cypher, delving into the queer origins and aesthetics of hip hop with Astraea award-winning duo Krudxs Cubensi and author and scholar Dr. Shante Paradigm Smalls; the Archer Aymes Retrospective, exploring the legacy of emancipation through an immersive art installation curated by Carl Hancock Rux and featuring a concert performance by mezzo soprano Alicia Hall Moran and pianist Aaron Diehl, presented as one component of a three-part series commemorating Juneteenth in collaboration with Harlem Stage and Lincoln Center as part of the Festival of New York; legendary artist Nao Bustamante’s BLOOM, a cross-disciplinary investigation centered around the design of the vaginal speculum and its use in the exploitative and patriarchal history of the pelvic examination; Art at Water’s Edge, a symposium inspired by the work of director and scholar May Joseph on artistic invention in the face of climate change, including participants such as Whitney Biennale curator Adrienne Edwards, artist Kiyan Williams, Little Island landscape architect Signe Nielsen, eco-systems artist Michael Wang, and others; Symposium: Sound & Color – The Future of Race in Design, an interdisciplinary forum exploring how race matters in creative design for live performance hosted by lighting designer Jane Cox, playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, set designer Mimi Lien, and sound designer and composer Mikaal Sulaiman and featuring collaborations with Design Action and Oregon Shakespeare Festival; Juke Joint, a two-day event spotlighting the history of the juke joint in Black American social history and its legacy in music and culture, including performances by Pamela Sneed and Stew; Hapo Na Zamani, a 1960s-style happening curated by Carl Hancock Rux with music direction by Vernon Reid, and presented in collaboration with Harlem
Stage; Hidden Conversations, a celebration of Dr. Barbara Ann Teer with National Black Theatre; and Corpus Delicti, a convening of artists, activists, and intellectuals imagines and enacts transgender art and music as a vehicle for dialogue across differences presented in collaboration with the NYC Trans Oral History Project
Notable Public Programming salons include: the Literature Salon hosted by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, whose participants included Lynn Nottage, Suzan Lori-Parks, and Jeremy O. Harris; a Spoken Word Salon co-hosted with the Nuyorican Poets Cafe; a Film Salon featuring the works of immersive artist and film director Lynette Wallworth; “Museum as Sanctuary” led by installation artist and Artist-in-Residence Tania Bruguera, curated by Sonia Guiñansaca and CultureStrike, and featuring undocu-artists Julio Salgado and Emulsify; a Dance Salon presented in partnership with Dance Theater of Harlem, including New York City Ballet’s Wendy Whelan and choreographer Francesca Harper, among others; Captcha: Dancing, Data, Liberation, a salon exploring Black visual complexity and spirit, led by visionary artist Rashaad Newsome and featuring Saidiya V. Hartman, Kiyan Williams, Dazié Rustin Grego-Sykes, Ms.Boogie, Puma Camillê, and others; and Seasons of Dance, a contemporary dance salon featuring conversations with “mother of contemporary African dance” Germaine Acogny, Tanztheater Wuppertal dancer Malou Airaudo, and dancers from The Rite of Spring / common ground[s] at the Armory.
Artist Talks have featured esteemed artists, scholars, and thought leaders, such as: actor Bobby Cannavale; architects Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, and Elizabeth Diller; artist and composer Heiner Goebbels; choreographers Reggie (Regg Roc) Gray, Bill T. Jones, and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker; composers Philip Miller, Thuthuka Sibisi, Tyshawn Sorey, Samy Moussa, and Alexandra Gardner; composer and director Michel van der Aa; composer, vocalist, and scholar Gelsey Bell; conductors Amandine Beyer and Matthias Pintscher; designer Peter Nigrini; directors Claus Guth, Robert Icke, Richard Jones, Sam Mendez, Satoshi Miyagi, Ariane Mnouchkine, Ben Powers, Peter Sellars, Simon Stone, Ian Strasfogel, Ivo van Hove, and Alexander Zeldin; Juilliard president Damian Woetzel and Juilliard Provost and Dean Ara Guzelimian; musicians Helmut Deutsch, Nona Hendryx, Miah Persson, and Davóne Tines; New Yorker editor David Remnick; James Nicola, Artistic Director of New York Theater Workshop; performance artists Marina Abramović and Helga Davis; RoseLee Goldberg, Founding Director and Chief Curator of Performa; playwrights Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Tony Kushner, Lynn Nottage, and Anne Washburn; Dr. Augustus Casely Hayford, Director of the Smithsonian, National Museum of African Art; visual artists Nick Cave, William Kentridge, Julie Mehretu, Julian Rosefeldt, Hito Steyerl, and Ai Wei Wei; and writers and scholars Anne Bogart, Robert M. Dowling, Emily Greenwood, and Carol Martin
NEXT AT THE ARMORY
MONKEY OFF MY BACK OR THE CAT’S MEOW
SEPTEMBER 9 – 20
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
Centered on a stunning Mondrian-like colored grid spanning the length of the Drill Hall, choreographer, dancer, and Guggenheim fellow Trajal Harrell’s dancing runway show is turned on its head with iconography that juxtaposes everyday gestures and artificial poses with historical references, pop culture, and political rhetoric. And while drawing on the Declaration of Independence as a foundation for the US and its urgent call for freedom, this vivid mosaic of a double-edged paradigm also explores the resulting inequalities to the forebearers of the land affected by those actions while celebrating the unifying power of community.
11,000 STRINGS
SEPTEMBER 30 – OCTOBER 7
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
Surrounding audiences with 50 micro-tuned pianos playing simultaneously alongside a chamber ensemble, maverick composer Georg Friedrich Haas’s spatial masterpiece, performed by Klangforum Wien, unleashes a cascade of sound that transcends traditional tonality while focusing on the human dimension in music experimentalism and creating a new way of listening. This sonically adventurous spatial work is realized as a concert installation in the Wade Thompson Drill Hall, showcases Haas’s focus on the human dimension in his experimentalism while creating a new way of listening.
THE FAGGOTS AND THEIR FRIENDS BETWEEN REVOLUTIONS
DECEMBER 2 – 14
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
This cult book of fables and myths serves as the starting point for a new music theater adaptation from the creative minds of composer Philip Venables and director Ted Huffman. Together they conjure up a world that takes the original text on a kaleidoscopic journey that ignores boundaries just like the characters on stage do, drawing on theater, dance, and song from the Baroque to Broadway and beyond. The performers serve as actors, storytellers, and musicians all rolled into one, continually swapping roles while doing away with gender and genre norms and replacing them with unapologetic individuality and a lust for life. The resulting cabaret-like spectacle is both vulnerable and daring, a fantastic parable hiding a political manifesto for survival that gives voice to the marginalized and oppressed everywhere.
RECITAL SERIES
PENE PATI & RONNY MICHAEL GREENBERG
SEPTEMBER 24 & 26
The first Samoan tenor to perform on Europe’s top opera stages, Pene Pati has made a name for himself on both sides of the Atlantic with an exceptional versatility in repertoire that showcases his luminous timbre, a seductively natural singing style, and perfectly nuanced articulation. Pati makes his North American solo recital debut in the Board of Officers Room with a varied program of songs traversing eras and continents that beautifully showcases his caressing colors and amber high notes.
MAKING SPACE AT THE ARMORY
CAFTAN: STYLE AS LIBERATION AND CULTURAL EXCHANGE
SEPTEMBER 28
Inspired by the legendary fashion icon André Leon Talley, his iconic caftans, and his role in the world of fashion, this vibrant, multifaceted program explores fashion’s role in self-expression, freedom, and diasporic encounter. The day includes a panel discussion with industry historians, designers, educators, and community activists that examines the role of fashion as a tool for resistance, cultural preservation, and cross-cultural dialogue; an interactive workshop engaging participants in creating wearable art pieces; as well as pop-up exhibitions, runway shows, and more.
ARTISTS STUDIO
GUILLERMO E. BROWN
OCTOBER 11
Drummer, composer, and creator Guillermo E. Brown pushes music performance to new heights through musical collaborations, sound installations, and singular theatrical works. Brown comes to the Veterans Room with a cast of collaborators for an insightful overview of the past, present, and future of his work, including some of his Creative Capital projects and new compositions played on a new audio-visual musical instrument he is building as part of the Doris Duke Foundation Performing Arts Technology Lab.
