Sade Lythcott, CEO of National Black Theatre (NBT), is carrying on the legacy of her mother, Dr. Barbara Ann Teer, who founded NBT back in 1968. Based in Harlem and born out of the Black Arts Movement, NBT has spent the last five decades presenting stories by and about Black people with an aim is "to produce transformational theater…by telling authentic stories of the Black experience.” It has done so not just on its stage but in the streets, parks, shops, and bars of Harlem. And in the process, this nonprofit community theater has become an important cultural incubator. Since its founding NBT has produced over 300 new works and worked with artists ranging from James Baldwin to Nikki Giovanni, from Nina Simone to Maya Angelou. In this podcast, Lythcott talks about the philosophy that’s been guiding NBT since its beginning, its emphasis on community and placemaking, how NBT develops new work and how, at this moment of racial reckoning, NBT has no interest in calling anyone out, they’re calling people in to sit at “the table we’ve been setting for 50 years.”
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