Finding Wakanda Within
HISTORY REPEATED ITSELF, AND THE POSSIBILITIES FOR THE FUTURE WERE revealed, as we organized the 2018 International Black Theatre Summit, “Breaking New Ground Where We Stand,” which took place at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., last Sept. 26-29. That this 20th anniversary of the 1998 National Black Theatre Summit, “On Golden Pond,” came in the wake of the stellar box-office performance of the film Black Panther felt like timing that was beyond serendipitous.
Constanza Romero, August Wilson’s widow and executor of the playwright’s literary estate, gave me her blessing to proceed with my plans to reconjure the touchstone moment in Black theatre history when Wilson, Victor Leo Walker II, and William Cook convened the earlier Black theatre summit. In 1998 I was just becoming familiar with Wilson’s plays; Ntozake Shange had been the writer who first helped me find my voice. While studying the rich history of Black theatre and performance, I learned about Wilson’s advocacy and self-proclaimed “seamlessness” as a race man. When my negative experiences as a Black woman in the industry led me to consider other career paths, August Wilson was a lifeline leading me back to acting and directing. He died in 2005, before I had a chance to tell him how much his work inspired my own seamless approach to life, craft, and pedagogy.
But by 2018, the planets aligned for me and others to revisit “On Golden Pond,” both as a tribute to Wilson’s legacy and as an opportunity to break new ground. Bringing together international scholars and practitioners in theatre, film, television, and related media platforms, and striving to foster intentional collaborations for sustainable Black cultural production throughout the African diaspora, the 2018 International Black Theatre Summit was poised to seize this potentially watershed moment as one that might turn the tide for Black cultural production across platforms. My book Shaping the Future of African American Film: Color-Coded Economics and the Story Behind provided the organizing framework for the convening. What follows is an overview of my opening presentation at the summit, interspersed with highlights from a range of summit sessions and participants.