The Black Rep reports major milestones achieved during ‘02-’03 Theatre Season

Through the support of major local investors and Season Sponsors like Fleet Bank, Foxwoods Resort Casino, CVS/Pharmacy, and Citizens Bank, the Providence Black Repertory Company produced a first full season of entertaining plays and special performances at its new location on 276 Westminster Street.

The Student “School Day” Matinee program boasted another successful outcome of participation by hundreds of Rhode Island and Greater New England schools - making theatre accessible to over 5,000 schoolchildren this past year alone. NBC-10 was the proud media sponsor of the 2002-2003 theatre season, providing television access designed to create wider awareness and visibility of PBRC programs.

The holiday production, “A Kwanzaa Song,” written by local playwright and long-time Black Rep artist Ricardo Pitts-Wiley, was achieved in partnership with the regionally-acclaimed Rhode Island College Performing Arts Series. The musical production completed 13 performances at Roberts Hall’s 900-seat auditorium in December.

In November, the Providence Performing Arts Center hosted its annual Fleet Arts Showcase in which the Black Rep was selected to present and perform its newest tool for theatrical understanding, “A Tribute to Langston Hughes.” The event welcomed over 3,000 schoolchildren and their teachers.

Having received so much acclaim and praise from that performance, Artistic Director Donald W. King decided to present “A Tribute to Langston Hughes” as its mainstage production running during Black and Women’s History Months. The production proved to be a popular favorite of long-time audiences and patrons of The People’s “Pay-What-You-Can Family Sunday” Matinees.

Around the same time of the Fleet Arts Showcase at PPAC, the two organizations worked in partnership to host a lecture-demo of the much-acclaimed Broadway smash hit, “Bring In ‘Da Noise/Bring In ‘Da Funk.” Popular artist and dancer, Savion Glover, performed and lectured to over 200 young people while “funking it up” on the Black Rep stage. Glover spoke about the long and important history of “hoofin,” as well as the phenomenal evolution of “Noise/Funk.” The Black Rep staff was treated to an evening of the performance by PPAC associates.

Towards the end of one of its most memorable seasons since its inception in 1996, having relocated to its own facility and garnering critical support from some of Rhode Island’s top corporations and foundations, the Black Rep has also been invited to perform at the prestigious 2003 National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The repertory company will be traveling south to the festival in August.

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