Dean Phylicia Rashad and Dr. Greg Carr on “Dangerous Acts”
When is creating art a Dangerous Act?
Forbidden from learning to read or write, enslaved Black storytellers upheld the powerful African Diasporic tradition of oral storytelling. Nevertheless, as time passed, they fought to learn Western practices, which valued the written word over oral tradition. Even after adopting this format, their writings were marginalized and denied a broad audience. Only a few of these early works remain, with most lost to history.
At a time when Black writers were not encouraged to record their experiences, to tell their stories, or to make themselves and their lives known, these luminaries – including Mary P. Burrill, Willis Richardson, and Zora Neale Hurston – performed the Dangerous Act of putting their thoughts to paper and sharing them with their communities. The Lucille Lortel Theatre has developed this program to recognize those narratives as integral to the American canon.
The Emmy-nominated Dangerous Acts series elevates these overlooked writers from intentional obscurity and connects them to students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). We are deeply committed to highlighting these powerful narratives in collaboration with the next generation of performers, and in doing so, encouraging a new generation of students at HBCUs like Hampton University and Howard University to connect with the incredible legacy of Black storytellers in a meaningful and unforgettable way.
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