African-American Theatre on the Web - Part 1

In honor of Black History Month, Suite 101 Theatre will spend the next several weeks looking around the Net at a number of sites devoted to African-American theatre, its creators, performers and historians.

Under the imposing visage of its logo, an 1821 engraving of actor James Hewlett in the role of Richard III in The African Company's production, the site devoted to the National Conference on African-American Theatre, Incorporated sprawls like an old bookstore. And like an old shop, the site contains easily accessible material for the casual browser, along with some real gold for the more serious academic scholar willing to burrow into the back rooms and stacks.

The NCAAT was founded in 1983 and incorporated in 1992, as their charter reads "to promote meaningful historical, theoretical and critical research of African-American Theatre by providing speaking and publishing opportunities to interested scholars, teachers, performers, and lay-persons." (You'll find their constitution and by-laws in full here.)

The site goes a long way towards demonstrating their achievement of those goals. Through the administration and membership of some of the most highly regarded and recognized writers, historians, performers and academics, the NCAAT has been behind the dissemination of a substantial amount of published research. Their annual conferences have seen papers and readings by the likes of Amiri Baraka, Woodie King, Douglas Turner Ward, Ossie Davis and Lucy M. Walker. And the site makes many of these abstracts and papers available for perusing, including (among many others):

William Owens' "The Free Southern Theatre Company"

Anthony Hill's "J.A. Jackson's Page in Billboard: A Voice for Black

 Performance during the Harlem Renaissance between 1920-25"

Thomas D. Pawley's "A Brief Chronicle of Black Theatre of the Sixties"

Samuel Christian's "Four African-American Female Playwrights, 1910-1950:

 The Narratives of Their Black Voodoo Plays"

Kathryn M. Ervin's "Art, Community and Theatre Education"

In recognition of sustained achievement in contribution to African-American theatre, the NCAAT yearly presents the Mister Brown Award, named after the founder of the African Company, a seminal African-American theatre group in New York City during the early 19th Century. The site lists the recipients of the award, with links to biographies.

The site also provides a listing of their membership, information on this year's conference as well as details about conferences scheduled for five years, and, most importantly, a form to join the organization.

Although you'll find no direct links from the NCAAT site, on the same server (and designed by that organization's executive director) is the Hatch-Billops Collection's site. Primarily a research library, the Collection holds slides and photographs, oral history recordings, programs, resumes, press clippings, catalogs, dissertations,