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References
- Conner, Lynne (2007). Pittsburgh in Stages: Two Hundred Years of Theater. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 0-8229-4330-1.
Black Horizons Theater (BHT) (note the "s" in the name, which is the authentic title of the theater group, with all of its plural and future-oriented intention) was created after a meeting of Black Action Society (BAS) of the University of Pittsburgh representative's Curtiss E. Porter (now Ph.D. and Chancellor of Penn State Greater Allegheny Campus in White Oak/ McKeesport, Pa.), Jake Milliones, Ph.D. (deceased, former City Council President of the City of Pittsburgh) and E. Philip McKain (currently Executive Director of CTE , the Community Action Program of Stamford, Ct.) with members of the "Centre Ave. Poets", Rob Penny and August Wilson.
This meeting culminated with an agreement to provide funding through the Program Committee of the BAS, which Porter headed as Director, while Mr. McKain was Co-Director, and Mr. Milliones, an influential graduate student member. The funding connection was established. BAS provided honoraria to Penny and Wilson and funds for rent and publicity. The plays went into production at the A. Leo Weil Elementary School.
The connection of the BAS was incipient to the early development of the BHT. BAS provided the theater with leadership, funding, and major portions of the early audiences. Students from the University of Pittsburgh attended under the auspices of their Black Studies classes. One such student would have been best-selling author, Elizabeth "Bebe" Moore-Campbell. Through the attendance of students of the BAS-sponsored Department of Black Community Education Research and Development (DBCERD - Black Studies), and, from the expanding community audiences made available through publicity of the plays, the BHT flourished. Indeed, BHT became a repertoire theater which performed in numerous locations, including Oberlin College in Ohio and at Barbara Ann Teer's National Black Theatre (NBT) in Harlem, New York, New York.
Curtiss Porter, who is often underwritten or completely left out of the history of these circumstances, was a writer and Director of some of BHT's earliest productions: Evolution to Revolution by Porter and Amiri Baraka's Slave Ship.