Black Theatre Troupe announces its spectacular 2024-25 lineup, marking its 55th season! Black Theatre Troupe marks its return to Tempe Center for the Arts with the extraordinary musical, The Color Purple. From its home at the Helen K. Mason Performing Arts Center in downtown Phoenix, the company will present The Trial of One Short-Sighted Black Woman vs. Mammy Louise and Safreeta Mae, Black Nativity, The African Company Presents Richard III, and Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill.
Season flex packages for 4, 3 and 2 plays are on sale now starting at $89 at blacktheatretroupe.org or by calling 602-258-8128.
Please note: Flex packages exclude Black Nativity.
2024-25 SEASON
The Trial of One Short-Sighted Black Woman vs. Mammy Louise and Safreeta Mae
By Karani Marcia Leslie
September 6 through the 22nd
Helen K. Mason Performing Arts Center
As a black woman on her way up the television industry's corporate ladder, Victoria Dryer is assigned to work on a movie depicting slavery. Tired of these images and feeling they impede her personal and professional progress, she puts them on trial. However, when the women of her imagination take the stand, their harrowing, sometimes funny stories conclude with a stunning and powerful verdict.
The Color Purple
Book by Marsha Norman
Music & Lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis & Stephen Bray
October 18 through November 3
Tempe Center for the Arts
This uplifting musical reminds us to "be thankful for the days we've been given- both the easy and the hard ones we're living." Alice Walker's remarkable coming-of-age story is again brought to life and told as only the Black Theatre Troupe can, weaving this touching and sometimes darkly painful tale of the power of love to overcome. Featuring a vibrant score infused with jazz, ragtime, gospel, African music, and blues, this musical celebration is a testament to the human spirit and the healing power of love.
Tickets for The Color Purple are available now by purchasing a flex ticket package.
Single tickets will go on sale soon through the Tempe Center for the Arts Box Office.
Black Nativity
By Langston Hughes
December 6 through 15
Helen K. Mason Performing Arts Center
Since 1975, BTT audiences have enjoyed this sold out, legendary holiday event by Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes. It again returns to the BTT stage for a special limited engagement. This stunning new production of Black Nativity is without a doubt a theatrical wonderment. A joyous company of singers, actors, dancers and musicians delivers its powerful message of joy, hope, victory and liberation. This song-play touches a special chord in the hearts of all at a very special time of the year.
Please note: Black Nativity is not eligible for flex pass subscriptions.
The African Company Presents: Richard III
By Carlyle Brown
February 7 through 23
Helen K. Mason Performing Arts Center
In 1821, forty years before Lincoln ended slavery, and fifty years before black Americans earned the right to vote, the first black theatrical group in the country, the African Company/African Grove Theater, was putting on plays in a downtown Manhattan theatre to which both black and white audiences flocked. Founded by William Henry Brown, a free Black American, they were known for their satires of white high society and debunking the sacred status of the English classics, which critics said were beyond the scope and skills of black actors. Shakespeare becomes the cultural battleground when Uptown producer Stephen Price challenges the company's acclaimed production of Richard III with his own-next door. The Company survives with its integrity intact! That strength and the resulting power to exist launches an equally progressive new chapter in the American theatre: They go on to produce the first black plays written by black Americans of their day.
Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill
By Lanie Robertson
March 28 through April 13
Helen K. Mason Performing Arts Center
The time is 1959. From the bandstand of a seedy Philadelphia bar, just four months before her tragic and premature death, we watch Billie Holiday mesmerize one of her very last audiences. Throughout the evening, we listen to a collection of her best-known music and salty, often humorous reminiscences. A riveting portrait of a tortured soul, and a gifted musician whose life and genius were shaped by pain and anguish.
About Black Theatre Troupe
Founded by Helen K. Mason in 1970 as a space for underserved artists to share the Black experience, Black Theatre Troupe began performing small plays, poetry readings, and musical performances in a community center in Phoenix’s historic multi-cultural Eastlake Park. The Helen K. Mason Performing Arts Center is now the company’s permanent home, a state-of-the-art facility located at Washington and 14th Streets in downtown Phoenix – exactly two blocks from where it all began. It features a 150-seat theatre, rehearsal space, costume shop and administrative offices. The Black Theatre Troupe’s main-stage productions and educational outreach programs serve constituents from seniors to young adults and children.
Recognized as one of the longest, continuously operating Black theatre companies in the United States, Black Theatre Troupe has become one of Phoenix’s major cultural attractions, providing training, employment and performance opportunities for multi-ethnic and underserved artists for over 50 years.
Black Theatre Troupe's productions and educational outreach programs broaden and enhance relationships within the community, from seniors and young adults to children, fostering understanding outside the Black community and bridging divisions which have too often separated people of color from the majority population.
Since its debut production in 1970 of Lonnie Elder’s nationally acclaimed drama of social and political consciousness, Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, Black Theatre Troupe has gained a national reputation for producing powerful works with an emphasis on Black playwrights and is dedicated to delivering some of the country's most courageous theater, while illuminating our shared humanity.
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