Civil Rights and the Blues: Where 2 Theatre Companies Found Their Voices

AMERICAN THEATRE

: On the dark day in 1965 when Malcolm X was murdered in Harlem, actor Robert Macbeth was just 20 blocks away, teaching acting classes. After the events of that day he realized: This was the time to move forward. Though he’d studied with the famous Lee Strasberg and landed many roles on Broadway, in films, and on TV, he’d begun to feel that his work paled in comparison to the urgency of the Civil Rights struggles in the South, from lunch counter sit-ins to church bombings. He yearned to make a meaningful contribution to his people’s fight for justice and freedom, and to provide dramatic presentation examining their persistence, capabilities, and need for self-defense, and to create stage work that echoed the improvisatory art of such jazz icons as Miles Davis and John Coltrane.