The Classical Theatre of Harlem (CTH) is an off-Broadway professional theatre company founded in 1999 at the Harlem School of the Arts. Producing on average 2–3 productions a year as well as implementing extensive educational programming, CTH remains the only year-round theatre company operating on an Actors' Equity Association LORT contract in Harlem. Its season selections present a world repertory ranging from Euripides to Derek Walcott, featuring classical and new playwrights. Since its founding, CTH has put on over 40 productions.
André Robin De Shields is an American actor, singer, dancer, director, and choreographer. He has received numerous accolades including an Emmy Award, Grammy Award, and Tony Award.
Hope Clarke is an American actress, dancer, vocalist, choreographer, and director. Clarke, a Tony Award nominee, made history in 1995 when she became the first African-American, as well as the first African-American woman, to direct and choreograph a major staging of the classic opera, Porgy and Bess. Clarke began her career as a principal dancer with the Katherine Dunham Company and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and as an actress appeared in many stage, film, and television productions. As a choreographer, Clarke is credited with staging and movement for more than 30 shows on and off Broadway.
Lynn Nottage is an American playwright whose work often focuses on the experience of working-class people, particularly working-class people who are Black. She has received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice: in 2009 for her play Ruined, and in 2017 for her play Sweat. She was the first woman to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama two times.
Gertrude Hadley Jeannette was an American playwright and film and stage actress. She is also known for being the first woman to work as a licensed taxi driver in New York City, which she began doing in 1942. Despite being blacklisted during the Red Scare in the 1950s, she wrote five plays and founded the H.A.D.L.E.Y. Players in Harlem, New York, remaining active in mentoring African-American actors in New York City. In the 1960s and 1970s she appeared in Broadway productions such as The Long Dream, Nobody Loves an Albatross, The Amen Corner, The Skin of Our Teeth and Vieux Carré. She also appeared in films such as Cotton Comes to Harlem in 1969, Shaft in 1971, and Black Girl in 1972. She acted into her 80s and retired from directing theater at the age of 98.
Derek McLane is an American set designer for theatre, opera, and television. He graduated with a BA from Harvard College and an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.
Osceola Marie Adams, known professionally by the stage name Osceola Archer, was one of the first Black actresses to appear on Broadway in Between Two Worlds in 1934. Speaking of Adams' decade-long role as director of some three dozen productions at the Putnam County Playhouse, actor Carl Harms noted she was likely also the first African-American director of summer stock.
Vinie Veronica Burrows was an American stage actress on Broadway.
Marion Isaac McClinton was an American theatre director, playwright, and actor. He was nominated for the Tony Award for King Hedley II. He won the 2000 Vivian Robinson Audelco Black Theatre Awards, Director/Dramatic Production and the 1999–2000 Obie Awards, Direction, for Jitney, and was nominated for the Drama Desk Award.
Alfred Preisser is an American theater director, playwright, producer and teacher of acting. He currently is the Artistic Director and Theater Director at Harlem School of the Arts.
Lia Chang is an American actress, journalist, and photographer. After beginning her career modeling and acting in New York and on tour, Chang added parallel careers as a portrait and botanical photographer and journalist.
Daniel Beaty is an American actor, singer, writer, composer and poet. Beaty is known for his blend of music, movement, and words in such original works as Emergence-See and Through The Night.
Linda Margaret Powell is an American actress.
Lee Summers is an American theatre, television and film actor, singer, librettist, composer, director and theatre producer best known for creating and producing Off-Broadway's From My Hometown. As a director, Summers is a two-time winner of both the 2022 and 2018 Audelco Awards for 'Best Director of a Musical' for "Ella, First Lady of Song" and for "On Kentucky Avenue," respectively. As an actor, Summers made his Broadway debut in the original production of Dreamgirls. His one-person show Winds of Change garnered him the 2010 "Best Entertainer" Bistro Award. In 2018 he was nominated for an Audelco Award for 'Best Featured Actor in a Musical,' for "On Kentucky Avenue." Summers has appeared in numerous TV/Film roles, such as Core FOI in Malcolm X starring Denzel Washington, a neurosurgeon on Law & Order; a turn-of-the-century cook on Boardwalk Empire, and as a Police Sergeant, opposite Tom Selleck on Blue Bloods.
Voza Rivers is an American producer of theater, film, music, and live events, born in Harlem, New York. Rivers' work as a theater producer, music executive, event producer, and documentary filmmaker has been presented in the United States, Japan, South Africa, Togo, Nigeria, Cuba, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
Loretta Agatha Abbott was an American educator, dancer, choreographer, singer, director, dance captain, and actress. She was an early member and foundation builder for the Alvin Ailey Dance Company. She was also a founding member of the Clark Center for the Performing Arts, and worked with the organization from 1959 to 1989.
The Harlem Repertory Theatre was founded in 2004 by Keith Lee Grant, a Theatre professor at City College with a goal of making theatre accessible to the Harlem community. They primarily seek to present shows that explore issues of class and race. Harlem Rep performed for seven summer seasons at Aaron Davis Hall before moving off campus to the 133rd Street Arts Center. It was at this venue that Harlem Rep's production of Dreamgirls ran and received AUDELCO awards in a number of categories. After two years, the company moved to a larger space in the Tato Laviera Theatre in East Harlem. Among the productions at their East Harlem Home are: A Raisin in the Sun in 2017, Sweet Charity (2019), and Harburg & Saidy's Jamaica (2017).
Harrison David Rivers is an American playwright. Rivers' work has won him the Relentless Award, a GLAAD Media Award, a McKnight Fellowship for Playwrights, a Jerome Foundation Many Voices Fellowship, an Emerging Artist of Color Fellowship, a Van Lier Fellowship and the New York Stage & Film's Founders Award. He is based in Saint Paul, Minnesota and is married to Christopher Bineham.
Merris Shirley Prendergast was a theater lighting designer notable for being the first African-American woman admitted to the United Scenic Artists’ lighting division in 1969. She was also the first African-American woman lighting designer on Broadway in 1973. Prendergast designed lighting for Broadway shows such as Waltz of the Stork, Amen Corner, and the Paul Robeson one-man show. She designed lighting for fifty years, well into her mid-80s. One of her last productions was Zora Neale Hurston: a Theatrical Biography in 2016.
Dale Ricardo Shields is an African American actor, director, producer, and educator. He is one of ten teachers nationwide who received the 2017 The Kennedy Center/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Award.
