Theater created by Black New Yorkers goes back two centuries, as chronicled in the collections of the New York Public Library and the Library of Congress, some items from which are posted below, in honor of Black History Month.

A flyer from the African Company, the first professional Black theater group in America, which was founded in 1820 and performed at the African Grove, at Bleecker and Mercer Streets in downtown Manhattan. 

The theater’s founder, William Alexander Brown, is credited with having written the first play by a Black writer produced in America, “The Drama of King Shotaway,” based on an insurrection by Black Caribbeans against the British in 1795 on the island of St. Vincent.

The theater also launched the career of Ira Aldridge, who was born a free African American in New York in 1807 and went on to become one of the greatest Shakespearean actors of his time — although, since the African Grove was short-lived, his career quickly shifted overseas. Over four decades, Aldridge toured widely and to great acclaim in Europe, (Adrian Lester portrayed him a decade ago in a play entitled “Red Velvet.“)

 William Wells Brown‘s ” The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom was the first known play by a Black playwright to be published in the United States, in 1858.

Bert Williams in 1911, the year he launched a successful solo career that included becoming the only Black performer cast year after year in the Ziegfeld Follies. Williams was, according to his friend W.C. Fields, “the funniest man I ever saw and the saddest man I ever knew.” Williams was probably the most popular African-American entertainer at the turn of the twentieth century, a man of many talents, and many firsts.He and his partner George Walker created four musicals on Broadway between 1901 and 1908, including “In Dahomey,” 1903-1904, Above, Hattie McIntosh, George Walker, Ada Overton Walker, Bert Williams, and Lottie Williams perform a cakewalk

Angelina Grimké, whose play Rachel, produced in 1916 and published in 1920, concerns a young woman who is so horrified by racism that she vows never to bring children into the world. It was one of the first plays written by a Black author about Black issues.

Charles Gilpin in the stage production The Emperor Jones by Eugene O’Neill, 1920, a role that Paul Robeson would play in the movie adaptation. (Gilpin’s career is the subject of a recent movie, The Black Emperor of Broadway.)

A publicity still from “Shuffle Along,” a 1921 Broadway musical created by four Black men — it was composed by Eubie Blake, with lyrics by Noble ?Sissel and a book by the4 comedy duo of Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles — and featuring an all-Black cast, including the Broadway debut of Paul Robeson, at age 23. ( George C. Wolfe remade the musical on Broadway in 2016 )

Paul Robeson in the 1924 Broadway production of “All God’s Chilun Got Wings” by Eugene O’Neill, and in the title role of “Othello,” in 1943

Langston Hughes’ play “Mulatto: A Tragedy of the Deep South, produced on Broadway in 1935, tells the story of a mixed-race boy’s self-acceptance after his white father rejects him.

Rose McClendon, a Broadway actress and the founder of the Negro People’s Theatre, became a moving force behind the dozen Negro Units of the Federal Theatre Project throughout the country, advising FTP director Hallie Flanagan, and supervising the establishment of the New York unit.

Rex Ingram in “Haiti.” 1938, a play by William DuBois dramatizing the final year of the Haitian revolution in 1802. Ingram was a graduate of Northwestern University medical school when he was recruited by Hollywood, originally appearing in silent Tarzan movies, but going on to many memorable roles, such as The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn opposite Mickey Rooney. He was a veteran of more than a dozen Broadway plays and musicals, including Cabin in the Sky in 1940 with Ethel Waters, and Waiting for Godot in 1957.

Jack Carter played the title character in the 1936 all-Black production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, staged by Orson Welles, and set in the “Jungles of Mythical Island Resembling Haiti in the West Indies.”

Frauline Alvor and Maurice Ellis in “The Case of Philip Lawrence,” 1937, a play written by George MacEntee about a college graduate (Ellis) who is unable to find honest employment, goes to work in a numbers racket, and is framed for the murder of a white gangster.

Frances Smith, blues singer, in a scene from The Case of Philip Lawrence

From “Turpentine,” 1936, written by J. A. Smith and Peter Morell, about a rebellious collective of African American workers in the turpentine swamps of Florica. In this scene, a straw boss meets a delegation of turpentine workers who are demanding higher pay and better working conditions

Another scene from “Turpentine.” Shine Sommers, portrayed by Louis Sharp

Doe Doe Green, Lester Palmer, Sybil Moore, “Aggie”, and Clifton Davis in “Horse Play,” 1937 The play is a humorous fantasy by Dorothy Hailparn dealing with the adventures of one Hiram, an old farmer and his horse, “Aggie.” Doe Doe Green, the “Gabriel” in the original stage production of “The Green Pastures” portrays the leading role of Hiram. Perry Watkins designed the settings, and Byron Webb the lighting effects. Evelyn Ellis directed the play.

A Negro Unit production of George Bernard Shaw’s “Androcles and the Lion”

A poster of the production in San Francisco (“Sensational Success Hot From New York”)

Three of the performers from Swing Mikado, a jazz version of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.

Pinocchio, 1938

The Negro Unit’s production of George Kelly’s The Show Off, 1937

The Harlem Renaissance was a fertile time for Black theater, climaxing in the dozens of productions by the “Negro Unit” of the Federal Theatre Project in the 1930’s.

Theater during the Black Lives Matter explosion in 2020, available then (since in-person theater was closed) only online.

Plays by Black playwrights in the 2022-2023 Broadway season, clockwise from top left: “Topdog/Underdog,” the revival of Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize winning play; “The Piano Lesson,” the revival of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize winning play; “Ain’t No Mo’,” by Jordan E Cooper, marking the playwright’s Broadway debut at age 27; “Ohio State Murders” by Adrienne Kennedy, marking the playwright’s Broadway debut at age 91, in the James Earl Jones Theater, one of the three Broadway theaters  (re)named after Black theater artists.