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Celebrate Black Voices

Celebrate Black Theatrical History

Celebrate Black History Month in your theatre class by exploring the history of Black plays and works on Broadway, from the late 1800's until today.  Find the titles you need at Black Work Broadway an internet database tracking plays by people of color on Broadway.   

Celebrating Black History Month - Broadway Milestones You Need to Know   
Learn about Broadway milestones as a part of Black history.

Top BIPOC Plays You Can't Miss
Jose Solis on dramatics.org

Lesson Plan Idea:

Celebrate Diversity 365 Days a Year

Lesson Prompt:  "Imagine going to a classroom and only reading inspiring things about the people who look like you only one month in a year — and the shortest month at that." - Ernest Owens, The Morning Call, Feb 03, 2019 at 12:00 pm

After reading and discussing the quote above, challenge your students toresearch famous acting theorists and contributors from BIPOC cultures and build a classroom gallery wall. Every acting class features famous contributors to theatre making, whose faces and names appear on your bookshelves and classroom walls, how can yours celebrate diversity 365 days a year? 

See a beautiful example on the Black Acting Methods website.

National Theatre Standards Alignment: 

TH:Cn11.I.a. Research how other theatre artists apply creative processes to tell stories in a devised or scripted drama/theatre work, using theatre research methods



Celebrate Great Performances

Click on the image and scroll down to celebrate great performances and legendary black actors  by watching James Earl Jones in this Shakespeare in the Park production of King Lear by The Public Theatre, streaming from the website "Allarts.org"  

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Lesson Plan Idea: Combine a watch party with the Click to Teach lesson in Theatre Criticism to turn this into a unit. 

Watch Amanda Gorman read the poem "The Hill We Climb" for the 2021 inauguration of President Joseph Biden.
Combine a classroom watch party with the "Click to Teach" lesson on spoken word poetry. 

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