News
More than 200 people from the College and black theater community attended Saturday's conference, "African-American Theatre: the Next Stage," at the Hopkins Center.
The one-day conference, convened by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and Montgomery Fellow August Wilson, followed the five-day, closed door National Black Theatre Summit at the College's Minary Conference Center in central New Hampshire.
The conference and summit were the result of remarks Wilson made in a 1996 speech, where he called for a separate black theater.
Saturday's events consisted of a series of panels discussing African- American theater and legal and social initiatives, economics, developing playwrights, diversity within the black arts community and audience development.
"We are capable of more than we have thus far imagined," Wilson said at a closing panel Saturday night.
Dean of the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration Paul Danos, then unveiled a plan for a partnership between African-American Theatre and the Tuck School, that would help members of the black theater community learn better business.
This plan, Danos said, would bring theater managers to the Tuck School and also send Tuck students to work with African-American Theatre, with both programs to be subsidized by the Tuck School.
"[Tuck] students and faculty will benefit from this program," Danos said, before receiving a standing ovation from the audience.
Victor Walker, a drama and film studies professor, detailed his vision for the new millennium as a need for more involvement in the community.
"I'm willing to give up everything for this movement," Walker said.
