Black Theater Advance

September 6, 2025

The one-day salon event Black Theater Advance intends to advance the findings of NBT’s Catalyst program’s most recent iteration, Catalyst: Seeding Permanence for Black Theatre and the New Vanguard. These preliminary findings and critical frameworks provide a jumping-off point for artists, scholars, directors, cultural strategists, and audience members in attendance to imagine what the future of Black performance could be. Anchored by keynote speeches and intimate fireside chats with Dr. Mary Schmidt Campbell, Ain’t No Mo’ creator Jordan E. Cooper, and former Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact at The Kennedy Center Marc Bamuthi Joseph, the day also includes active working sessions led by award-winning actor and dramatist Nikkole Salter and theatrical ceremonialist, culture worker, public scholar, and entrepreneur Ebony Noelle Golden as well as creative offerings from vocalist and composer Imani Uzuri and multidisciplinary musician Samora Pinderhughes, among others. Salon topics include: how artistic leaders are navigating and reshaping institutions; strategies for sustaining Black theater’s radical potential; building out a Bill of Rights for Black Theater; intergenerational dialogue across artistic and institutional divides; and bold visions for transformation in the field.

SOLD OUT!
Returned tickets may be released to the in-person standby line starting 1 hour prior to the event.

Co-curated and presented with

Park Avenue Armory

Commissioned Artists

Ifa Bayeza

Ifa Bayeza is an award-winning playwright, director, composer and novelist. Her plays include the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award-winner Homer G & the Rhapsodies in The Fall of Detroit; String Theory; Welcome to Wandaland; Infants of the Spring; musicals Charleston Olio; Bunk Johnson ...a blues poem; Kid Zero; and THE TILL TRILOGY (The Ballad of Emmett Till, That Summer in Sumner, Benevolence). Winner of the 2020 Roy Cockrum Foundation Award, THE TILL TRILOGY made its national debut at Mosaic Theatre Company of DC in 2022, running in rotating repertory. Her debut novel, Some Sing, Some Cry was co-authored with her sister Ntozake Shange. Other awards/accolades: finalist, 2020 Herb Alpert Award and 2020 Francesca Primus Prize; inaugural NEH Humanistin- Residence in 2019; recipient, two National Trust for Historic Preservation commissions; 2022 MacDowell fellow; 2024 Kennedy Center Theatre Resident. BA, Harvard; MFA, UMass Amherst.

Patricia McGregor

Patricia McGregor is Artistic Director of New York Theatre Workshop and a renowned director and writer working in theater, film, dance, and music. Select productions: The Refuge Plays (Roundabout, NYTW); The Last of the Love Letters (Atlantic); Ugly Lies the Bone (Roundabout); Blood Dazzler (Harlem Stage); Lights Out: Nat “King” Cole (co-writer, director; Geffen Playhouse, People’s Light, NYTW); Shakespeare: Call and Response, Krapp’s Last Tape, What You Are, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Measure for Measure (Old Globe); Good Grief (CTG); Hamlet (The Public); Place (BAM); brownsville song (LCT); Indomitable: James Brown (Apollo); Holding It Down (Met Museum); A Four Electric Ghosts (The Kitchen); Hurt Village (Signature); among others. Other positions: Director, HBO emerging writer’s showcase; tour consultant, Raphael Saadiq and J. Cole; Associate Director, Fela! (Broadway); director, The 24 Hour Plays (Broadway); Co-Founder, Angela’s Pulse. Alumna, SMU/Yale School of Drama.

Sage Crump

Sage Crump is a culture strategist, artist, and movement facilitator who expands and deepens the relationship between the cultural sector and social justice organizing. Member of Complex Movements, a multidisciplinary Detroit-based artist collective supporting local and translocal visionary organizing. Principal and Co-Founder of The Kinfolks Effect (TKE), an incubation space for multimedia immersive installation work examining the movement of Blackness through time and space. Other positions: Director of Racial Justice and Movement Building, National Performance Network; Inaugural Cultural Strategy Fellow, The Opportunity Agenda (2019 Cultural Strategy Toolkit); former Co-Director, Emergent Strategies Ideation Institute; former member, LeftRoots; member, Guild of Future Architects and Women of Color in the Arts; board member with the Center for Cultural Innovation, Art2Action, and Mark-n-Sparks. Crump recently completed a 10-year initiative on the development of liberatory infrastructure and released the Mixed Metaphor Toolkit in 2023.

Stevie Walker-Webb

Stevie Walker-Webb is a Tony Award-nominated, Obie Award-winning Broadway director, playwright, and cultural worker who believes in the transformational power of art. He is Artistic Director of Baltimore Center Stage and his work has been produced on and off-Broadway, including AIN’T NO MO’ (The Public/Broadway). He is founder of HUNDREDSofTHOUSANDS, an arts and advocacy organization that makes visual the suffering and inhumane treatment of incarcerated mentally ill people. He has received the Princess Grace Award for Theatre, The Lily Award from the Dramatists Guild of America, and is a 2050 Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop. Other roles include: Contributing Writer, BET’s THE MS. PAT SHOW; Visiting Artist and Lecturer, Harvard University; Founding Artistic Director, the Jubilee Theatre in Waco, Texas. Walker-Webb has created art and theater in Madagascar, South Africa, Mexico, and across America.

India Haggins

India Haggins is the Account Director and Head of Audience Growth at SpotCo, where she leads innovative campaigns that build community, drive ticket sales, and expand access to the arts. A Harlem native with over 22 years of experience across the entertainment industry, Haggins has dedicated her career to connecting multicultural audiences to dance, music, and theater. She leads SpotCo’s audience development efforts for Roundabout Theatre Company and Lincoln Center Theater, including campaigns for FLEX, The Blood Quilt, The Refuge Plays, and Liberation. Broadway credits: Dead Outlaw, Fat Ham, Death of a Salesman, SUFFS, HOME, English, McNeal, Floyd Collins. Previous roles at New York City Center, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and Jazz at Lincoln Center. BA Economics, Bucknell University; MA Performing Arts Management, Brooklyn College. Member, Broadway League’s Black to Broadway Subcommittee.

Adrienne Warren

Adrienne Warren recently starred as Cathy in The Last Five Years on Broadway opposite Nick Jonas. She previously originated the role of Tina Turner in TINA – The Tina Turner Musical (Broadway, West End; Tony, Drama Desk, Antonyo, Outer Critics awards; Olivier, Evening Standard Award noms). Other Broadway credits: Shuffle Along (Tony, Chita Rivera, Fred Astaire nom.), Bring It On: The Musical, The Wiz (Encores!), Dreamgirls (The Apollo; NAACP Theatre Award nom.). In 2024, she made her solo Carnegie Hall debut with the New York Pops. Select film/TV credits: Netflix’s Rustin; Hulu’s Black Cake; Sony Pictures’ The Woman King; ABC’s Women of the Movement. Co-Founder, Broadway Advocacy Coalition (BAC), which uses arts and storytelling to build a more equitable society, while building the collective capacity of individuals, organizations, and coalitions to do the same (honorary Tony Award 2021). Voice, Maybelline New York. Graduate, Governor’s School for the Arts.

Participants

Dr. Mary Schmidt Campbell

Mary Schmidt Campbell, PhD, is President Emerita of Spellman College. An art historian and former curator, she previously served as Executive Director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, NYC Commissioner of Cultural Affairs, and Dean of NYU Tisch. President Barack Obama appointed her Vice Chair of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she chairs the Doris Duke Foundation board, sits on several nonprofit boards, and is a member of the UBS Americas Advisory Council. She lectures and publishes widely, including An American Odyssey: The Life and Work of Romare Bearden (Oxford University Press, 2018) and Sam Gilliam (Phaidon Press, 2024). BA English Literature Swarthmore; MA Art History, Syracuse; PhD Humanities, Syracuse.

Ebony Noelle Golden

Artist, scholar, and culture strategist Ebony Noelle Golden devises and directs site-specific ceremonies, live art installations, and environmental experiments that activate the throughline of Black liberation. Recent credits: The Divining: Ceremonies from in the name of the m/other tree (Apollo Theater/NBT, 2024); presentations at Weeksville Heritage Center, Double Edge Theatre, The Shed, and Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance. Awards: Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New England Foundation for the Arts, Creative Capital, NYSCA, LMCC grants; Cave Canem fellowships; MacDowell, Yaddo residencies. Other roles: inaugural SOUL Directing Resident, National Black Theatre; inaugural Skylab Artist-in-Residence, Hi-ARTS; Founder and CEO, Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative and Jupiter Performance Studio. BA, Texas A&M; MA, NYU; MFA, American.

Jordan E. Cooper

Jordan E. Cooper is an Obie-Award winning performer/playwright who was chosen to be one of Out Magazine’s “Entertainers of the Year” and Forbes “30 Under 30” in 2024. Cooper was also featured on the final season of FX’s groundbreaking series Pose as MC Tyrone. He is the creator and showrunner of the Emmy-nominated sitcom The Ms. Pat Show. Cooper became the youngest American playwright in Broadway history with his Tony-award nominated musical Ain’t No Mo’ (2022). Other credits include: Oh Happy Day! (Baltimore Center Stage 2024, The Public Theater 2025).

Kamilah Forbes

Kamilah Forbes is the Executive Producer of The Apollo and an esteemed award-winning director and producer for theater and television. She has received awards for both directing and producing, including the 2019 NBTF Larry Laon Hamlin Producer Award and an NAACP Image Award. Directing credits include: Between the World and Me, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, Blood Quilt, Sunset Baby; The Wiz Live, A Raisin in the Sun, Mountaintop, Stick Fly (Broadway); Between the World and Me (HBO); Hippest Trip – The Soul Train Musical (American Conservatory Theater); among others. She has produced several works for television, most notably the seventh season of HBO’s Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry.

Nicholas Ryan Gant

Nicholas Ryan Gant (NRG) is a New York based singer, songwriter, and educator. NRG works as a music teacher in New York City schools and an internationally sought-after vocal coach. He has provided support vocals for acclaimed artists including Mariah Carey, Jon Batiste, Run the Jewels, Sy Smith, Childish Gambino, Miri Ben-Ari, and Michael McDonald. NRG is inspired by musicians across genres including Leontyne Price, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, The Clark Sisters, Prince, Whitney Houston, D’angelo, and Brandy. His online vintage shop, SAINT NICHOLAS VINTAGE, highlights his passion for urban vintage apparel. Opera, Howard University; MA Music Education, Hunter College (Lincoln Center Scholars).

Marc Bamuthi Joseph

Bamuthi is a 2017 TED Global Fellow; an inaugural recipient of the Guggenheim Social Practice initiative; an honoree of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship; winner of the Herb Alpert Award in Theatre; and an inaugural recipient of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. In Spring 2022, he was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was most recently welcomed into the 2023-24 Emerson Collective Dial Fellowship. An internationally renowned cultural strategist, Bamuthi is Co-Creator of the paradigmshifting allyship training HEALING FORWARD™. He has lectured in 25 different countries and his TED talk “You Have The Rite” has been viewed over five million times. Bamuthi is represented by SOZO.

Sade Lythcott

National Black Theatre CEO Sade Lythcott has led the organization to fiscal stability, established a programmatic reach across the nation and abroad, and bolstered resources provided to Black artists as they hone their voice. Daughter of the late Dr. Barbara Ann Teer, Lythcott builds on the theater’s 50-year commitment to telling authentic stories of the Black experience. Other roles include: Chairperson, Coalition of Theaters of Color; National Board of Advisors, Art in a Changing America and HueArts NYC; member, New York State on Governor’s Task Force to reopen live performance; Co-Lead, NYC Mayor-Elect’s Transition Team on Parks, Art, & Culture; Co-Lead, Culture @ 3; Inaugural Member, Black Genius Brain Trust.

Tavia Nyong’o

Tavia Nyong’o is a scholar and curator of performance. He is the author of The Amalgamation Waltz: Race, Performance, and the Ruses of Memory (2009), which won the Erroll Hill Award for Best Book in Black Performance Studies; and Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life (2018), which won the Barnard Hewitt Award for Best Book in Theater and Performance Studies. He writes regularly for Frieze, Artforum, The Baffler, and other venues. He is Chair and Wiliam Lampson Professor of Theater and Performance Studies at Yale and Curator of Public Programming and Scholar-in-Residence at Park Avenue Armory. He was recently awarded a 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship in Theatre Arts and Performance.

Samora Pinderhughes

Samora Pinderhughes is a musician, multidisciplinary artist, composer, and filmmaker as well as Founder and Artistic & Executive Director of the abolitionist organization The Healing Project. Awards: Chamber Music America 2020 Visionary, United States Artist, Emmy, Black Star Festival 2021 Best Experimental Film, Creative Capital awards; Art for Justive + Soros Justice, Sundance Composers fellowships; MoMA Adobe Creative, Joe’s Pub residencies. Collaborations: Herbie Hancock, Common, Sara Bareilles, Daveed Diggs, Kyle Abraham, Branford Marsalis, Robert Glasper, among others. Commissions: Carnegie Hall, Sundance, The Apollo. Exhibited by: The Kitchen, San Jose Art Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Brooklyn Museum. Film scores: Whose Streets?, Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project. Albums: The Transformations Suite, GRIEF, Venus Smiles Not in the House of Tears, Black Spring.

Jonathan McCrory

Jonathan McCrory is a Tony-Award winning, two-time Obie Award-winning, and Emmy-nominated Harlem-based artist who has served as Executive Artistic Director at National Black Theatre since 2012. He has directed numerous professional productions and concerts. Awards and acknowledgments include: Exceptional Leader, Crain’s New York Business 2020 Notable LGBTQ Leaders and Executives; 2013 Emerging Producer Award, National Black Theatre Festival; Torch Bearer Award, awarded by Woodie King Jr. Other positions include: founding member of Harlem9, Black Theatre Commons, The Jubilee, Next Generation National Network, and The Movement Theatre Company; National Advisory Committee, Howlround.com; original cohort member, ArtEquity. Alumnus, Duke Ellington School of the Arts and NYU Tisch.

Nikkole Salter

Nikkole Salter is an actress, playwright, director, and educator. Her In the Continuum, co-written and performed with Danai Gurira, earned an Obie and the Outer Critics Circle’s John Gassner Award. Other acting credits include appearances at Berkeley Rep, the Shakespeare Theatre, Lincoln Center, Arena Stage, US regional theaters, film, television, and video games. Playwriting work includes Repairing a Nation; Carnaval; and Grace with Nolan Williams Jr; among others. She made her directorial debut with Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill (Baltimore Center Stage). Salter is Co-Founder of The Continuum Project, Inc. and Chair of Theatre Arts at Howard University. Her pending book, Embodiment: The Practical Craft, Esoteric Art and Spiritual Tool of Acting, explores indigenous and contemporary acting theory.

Imani Uzuri

Imani Uzuri, raised in rural North Carolina, is an award-winning vocalist, composer, librettist, improviser, and conceptual artist. She composes, performs and creates interdisciplinary works including concerts, ritual performances, albums, sound installations and compositions for chamber ensembles, voice and theater (including experimental and musical theater). She has served as a Jerome Foundation Composer/Sound Artist Fellow, Camargo Foundation (Cassis, France) Composer- in-Residence, and HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP) Fellow. Uzuri has been commissioned by Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, The Ford Foundation, Harvard Fromm Players and her recent Chamber Music America New Jazz Works commission She Knows Suite premiered at Lincoln Center Atrium. MFA, Goddard College Vermont; MA African American Studies, Columbia University.