ABSTRACT
In early August 1997, I attended the National Black Theatre Festival and International Black Theatre Colloquium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The theme of this fifth biennial Black Theatre Festival was “An International Celebration and Reunion of Spirit”. Founder, executive and artistic director of the NBTF, Larry Leon Hamlin, pointed out that “global theatre practitioners and scholars from South Africa, Brazil, Cuba, Nigeria, Jamaica, Republic of Benin, England, Ghana, Canada and other parts of the world come together” here. The National Black Theatre Festival showcased the new World Black Theatre Movement. One of the prominent features of the festival was the International Colloquia/Workshop, organized by Dr Olasope O. Oyelaran of the International Program at Winston-Salem State University. This year’s theme for the colloquia was The Black Family on Stage’, which looked at how Black theatres around the world deal with family issues. In addition, there were ninety performances by more than twenty-three of the world’s Black theatre companies in a six-day period. I was able to attend the Crossroads Theatre Company production of August Wilson’s Jitney, directed by Walter Dallas; Black Goat Entertainment and Enlightenment’s Ghost Café, featuring Andre De Shields; Woodie King’s National Black Touring Circuit’s Do Lord Remember Me, by James de Jongh, directed by Regge Life; Jomandi Productions’ Hip II: Birth of the Boom, by Thomas W.Jones II, directed by Marsha A.Jackson; curator Idris Ackamoor’s New Performance in Black Theatre series, featuring a stand-in reading/ performance for ailing Sekou Sundiata by Amiri Baraka
with Craig Harris; and a standing-room-only visit to a reading of a play by Samuel Hay, Crack Cream an’ Brown Sugar, at the Festival’s ‘Readers Theatre’ under the direction of Garland Thompson.
