African American Theater: Moving Image & Recorded Sound Division

In this documentary, the meaning of black theatre is discussed by accomplished playwrights, directors, producers and performers. Includes interviews with Amiri Baraka, Ed Bullins, Ossie Davis, James Earl Jones, Ntozake Shange, and others.

This film is the first-ever feature length documentary about Lorraine Hansberry, the visionary playwright who authored the groundbreaking play "A Raisin in the Sun."

This documentary about the Negro Ensemble Company features interviews with NEC founding and company members, including Douglas Turner Ward, Denzel Washington, Rosalind Cash, Esther Rolle and others.

This documentary presents the life of Paul Robeson, an actor, singer, scholar and activist.

Rosetta LeNoire was a founding member of American Negro Theatre and she later went on to establish her own company, AMAS. LeNoire is remembered for her role in the long running TV sitcom "Family Matters." The interview was conducted by Jean Blackwell Hutson, the former curator and chief of the Schomburg Center.

The Hatch-Billops collection captures conversations with pivotal African-American theater makers. Interviewees include Ossie Davis, Vinnette Carroll, Rosetta LeNoire, Abram Hill, Ed Bullins, Vinie Burrows and many other luminaries.

In this interview, noted photographer Bert Andrews, who documented African-American theater in New York City for decades, discusses how he became involved with theater photography and his distinguished career. He is interviewed by Deborah Willis, former Curator of the Schomburg Center's Photographs and Prints Division.

In this 1980 episode of "Go Tell It," a Black public affairs TV program, performer and choreographer Debbie Allen and others explain how they got their start, what motivates them and what it takes to stay in the business.

In this 1979 episode of "Black Conversations" Tony Award winning theater artist and actor Geoffrey Holder. who directed the original Broadway production of the musical "The Wiz," discusses his work on the Broadway musical "Timbuktu" and the influence that Holder's birthplace of Trinidad and his family has on his work. "Black Conversations" was a talk show that aired on a local New York City television station WPIX.

In this program, playwright Loften Mitchell discusses his production of the musical "Bubbling Brown Sugar" and the other works he authored including "Ballad For Bimshire."

This musical by Lofton Mitchell and Irving Burgess from the 1960s, which was set in the Caribbean, starred Ossie Davis, Frederick O'Neal, Christine Spencer, and Jimmy Randolph

"A Hand is on the Gate" (1966) weaved poetry from writers including Paul Dunbar Lawrence, Langston Hughes and others with songs concerning the Black American experience. Cicely Tyson, Josephine Premice, Roscoe Lee Brown, Moses Gunn, Gloria Foster, James Earl Jones and Leon Bibb starred in this musical.

Melvin Van Peebles authored "Ain't Supposed to Die A Natural Death," a musical which examined Black urban life and it starred Arthur French, Minnie Gentry, Dick Anthony Williams, Beatrice Winde and others.

Performer Linda Hopkins paid tribute to blues singer Bessie Smith in the 1970s musical "Me and Bessie."

This musical which was produced in the early 1960s and contains a libretto by Langston Hughes is one of the earliest examples of a gospel musical. This was one of many musicals helmed by Vinnette Carol, who is credited with being one of the first Black women directors on Broadway.