Betty Shamieh is an American playwright, author, screenwriter, and actor of Palestinian descent. She has written 15 plays and one novel.
Shamieh became the first Palestinian-American to have a play premiere off-Broadway with the 2004 premiere of Roar, a drama about a Palestinian family. [1] Tony-nominated Marion McClinton directed, and Annabella Sciorra and Sarita Choudhury starred. [2]
Malvolio premiered at the Classical Theatre of Harlem in the summer of 2023, co-directed by Ian Belknap and Ty Jones. [3]
The Black Eyed's original premiere was at The Magic Theatre in 2005. [4] The off-Broadway premiere of The Black Eyed was at the New York Theatre Workshop in 2007, directed by Sam Gold with a cast of Aysan Celik, Lameece Issaq, Jeanine Serralles and Emily Swallow. [5] [6]
The Theatre Fournos of Athens, Greece, produced a translation of the play in Greek. [7] [8]
FIT FOR A QUEEN was first produced by the Classical Theatre of Harlem in 2016. [9]
Free Radicals was translated into Dutch by the Het Zuidelijk Toneel in 2012. [10] She was also an artist-in-residence at the same theatre. [11]
Ethel Waters was an American singer and actress. Waters frequently performed jazz, swing, and pop music on the Broadway stage and in concerts. She began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Her notable recordings include "Dinah", "Stormy Weather", "Taking a Chance on Love", "Heat Wave", "Supper Time", "Am I Blue?", "Cabin in the Sky", "I'm Coming Virginia", and her version of "His Eye Is on the Sparrow". Waters was the second African American to be nominated for an Academy Award, the first African American to star on her own television show, and the first African-American woman to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.
Broadway theatre, or Broadway, is a theater genre that consists of the theatrical performances presented in 41 professional theaters, each with 500 or more seats, in the Theater District and Lincoln Center along Broadway, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Broadway and London's West End together represent the highest commercial level of live theater in the English-speaking world.
Naomi Wallace is an American playwright, screenwriter and poet from Kentucky. She is widely known for her plays, and has received several distinguished awards for her work.
William Mercer Cook, better known as Will Marion Cook, was an African-American composer, pianist, orchestrator, lyricist, violinist, and choral director. Cook was a student of Antonín Dvořák. In 1919 he took his New York Syncopated Orchestra to England for a command performance for King George V of the United Kingdom, and tour. Cook is probably best known for his popular songs and landmark Broadway musicals, featuring African-American creators, producers, and casts, such as Clorindy, or The Origin of the Cake Walk (1898) and In Dahomey (1903). The latter toured for four years, including in the United Kingdom and United States.
Shuffle Along is a musical composed by Eubie Blake, with lyrics by Noble Sissle and a book written by the comedy duo Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles. One of the most notable all-Black hit Broadway shows, it was a landmark in African-American musical theater, credited with inspiring the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and '30s.
The Lafayette Theatre(1912–1951), known locally as "the House Beautiful", was one of the most famous theaters in Harlem. It was an entertainment venue located at 132nd Street and 7th Avenue in Harlem, New York. The structure was demolished in 2013.
Horace Edward "Steve" Carter Jr. was an American playwright, best known for his plays involving Caribbean immigrants living in the United States.
AUDELCO, the Audience Development Committee, Inc., was established in 1973 by Vivian Robinson to honor excellence in African American theatre in New York City.
Suheir Hammad is an American poet, author, and political activist.
Broadway Play Publishing Inc (BPPI) was established in New York City in 1982 to publish and license the stage performance rights of contemporary American plays. The Broadway Play Publishing Inc catalog consists of over 1,200 plays and over 400 authors, such as: Constance Congdon, María Irene Fornés, A. R. Gurney, Tony Kushner, Neil LaBute, Richard Nelson, Eric Overmyer, José Rivera, Naomi Wallace, and many others. Its authors have been produced on Broadway and Off, in London's West End, and in theaters across the United States and around the world. They have won Nobel Prizes, Pulitzer Prizes, Tony Awards, Obie Awards, the MacArthur Genius Grant, Guggenheim Fellowships, and National Endowment for the Arts grants. Christopher W.D. Gould is the current publisher, and Michael Q. Fellmeth is the current executive director.
Halley Feiffer is an American actress, playwright and television writer, known for her award-winning plays I'm Gonna Pray for You So Hard, Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of New York City, and for showrunning and writing the entire season of American Horror Story: Delicate starring Emma Roberts and Kim Kardashian.
The Ethiopian Art Theatre — originally called the Chicago Folk Theatre, later the Colored Folk Theatre, also referred to as The Ethiopian Art Players — was an African American theatre company based out of Chicago, Illinois. The company was an influential albeit short-lived (1922/1923–1925) group founded during the Harlem Renaissance. There are differing views over the precise year that the company was founded, 1922 or 1923. The founder was Raymond O'Neil, a white theatre director, and its principal sponsor was Mrs. Sherwood Anderson, also white; though all its performers were African American. The organization was unique and controversial during its era, primarily for being one of the few African American Theatre Companies to perform European theatrical works, but also, among other things, for producing theatrical works of African American playwrights for both African American and Non-African American audiences.
The American Negro Ballet Company, also known as the von Grona Ballet, was formed in 1934 under the auspices of Eugene Von Grona, a German dancer and choreographer, who was fascinated by Black culture and dance. The company performed classical ballet pieces, as well as modern dance works.
Anna Lucasta is a 1944 American play by Philip Yordan. Inspired by Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie, the play was originally written about a Polish American family. The American Negro Theatre director Abram Hill and director Harry Wagstaff Gribble adapted the script for an all African American cast, and presented the first performance on June 16, 1944. The play moved from Harlem to Broadway's Mansfield Theatre, running August 30, 1944 – November 30, 1946. The Broadway cast included Hilda Simms, Canada Lee, and Alice Childress.
Evelyn Ellis was an American character actress of stage and film. Devoting herself to the theatre, her film roles were few, but she appeared in films including The Joe Louis Story and The Lady from Shanghai. Toward the end of her career, Miss Ellis, as she was referred to in the press also directed a few theater plays, including an all-black Broadway production of Tobacco Road. The Baltimore Afro American newspaper in its issue in October 26, 1929, described her as a “quiet and unassuming young lady with a very charming personality".
New Heritage Theatre Group (NHTG) is the oldest Black nonprofit theater company in New York City, established in 1964. Through its multiple divisions: IMPACT Repertory Theatre, The Roger Furman Reading Series, and New Heritage Films, New Heritage gives training, exposure, and experience to new and emerging artists, playwrights, directors and technicians of color. New Heritage was founded by the late Roger Furman and is currently headed by Executive Producer Voza Rivers and Executive Artistic Director Jamal Joseph. NHTG presentations capture the historical, social, and political experiences of Black and Latino descendants in America and abroad.
Leonard Harper was a producer, stager, and choreographer in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and 1930s.
Edward W. Hardy is an American composer, music director, violinist and violist. He is known as the composer, co-conceiver, music director, and violinist of the Off-Broadway show The Woodsman and is the owner of The Black Violin.
Daniel W. Owens known by most as Dan Owens is an American playwright.
Lameece Issaq is an American writer, actor, and producer.