{"id":3286,"date":"2025-09-30T12:04:46","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T11:04:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/?p=3286"},"modified":"2025-09-30T12:04:46","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T11:04:46","slug":"what-is-black-theatre-history-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/2025\/09\/30\/what-is-black-theatre-history-month\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Black Theatre History Month?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Black Theatre History Month is a pilot project focussing on theatre and performance during Black History Month. It is designed to promote and celebrate the long history of Black excellence in the performing arts in England. The idea emerged from conversations that began in 2020 with students, teachers and researchers and coincided with renewed calls from the Black Lives Matter movement and racial justice campaigners to commit to anti-racism and dismantle white supremacy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Black History Month was established in Britain in 1987 to give Black children a sense of their heritage, the achievements of those who came before them and to help them stay connected to their roots in a hostile climate of anti-Black racism. Since then it has come to be a powerful way for institutions to acknowledge Black excellence and achievement, but, problematically, in some cases this happens <\/span>only<\/span><\/i> during the month of October.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our goal is to share resources, knowledge and data about the history of Black Theatre in Britain so that teachers, students, theatre practitioners, theatre lovers and researchers can use, share and build on this material all year round. We hope this means that more Black artists and theatre lovers will feel empowered to make and see work. We have drawn on our own research to create resources but are also linking to existing resources created by a wide variety of groups and organisations to promote existing scholarship and the profile of this work.<\/span><\/p>\n

2025 is the first year of the project, testing the content and strategies for sharing and co-creation in future. The project lead is University of Manchester academic Kate Dorney, inspired by the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre and Education Trust\u2019s manifesto: <\/span>Working Ethically With Black Histories<\/span><\/a><\/em>, Laura Connelly and Remi Joseph Salisbury\u2019s <\/span>Anti-racist Scholar Activism<\/span><\/i><\/a> and Sean Mayes and Sarah K Whitfield\u2019s\u00a0 <\/span>An Inconvenient Black History of British Musical Theatre<\/span><\/i><\/a>. The project researcher and co-curator is Theatre Maker and Access Coordinator Lerato Mokate and the project consultants are SuAndi OBE and Professor Lynette Goddard.<\/span><\/p>\n

We started locally by gathering data from archives, databases, books and newspaper reviews about the work that Black artists appeared in, created and directed in Manchester, UK. We used this list to curate an exhibition at the University of Manchester celebrating the artistry and entrepreneurship of Black theatre creatives.<\/span><\/p>\n

The research and resource creation has been supported by Creative Manchester, and Impact and Engagement awards from the School of Arts Languages and Culture at the University of Manchester and project partners: the National Theatre <\/span>Black Plays Archive<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Half Moon Theatre<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

To find out more about the project or contact us about collaborating by emailing us at <\/span>blacktheatrehistorymonth@gmail.com<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Black Theatre History Month is a pilot project focussing on theatre and performance during Black History Month. It is designed to promote and celebrate the long history of Black excellence in the performing arts in England. The idea emerged from conversations that began in 2020 with students, teachers and researchers and coincided with renewed calls […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6791,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drama","category-equality-and-diversity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6791"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3287,"href":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3286\/revisions\/3287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}