Larry Leon Hamlin, producer and artistic director of the National Black Theater Festival in Winston-Salem, N.C., traveled to Louisville in 1999 to see a play. The African American theater program at the University of Louisville was staging Monsieur Baptiste, the Con Man, a tale of passion and comedy set in the Caribbean.

Hamlin was adding a collegiate theater component to the National Black Theater Festival, and U of L's production of Monsieur Baptiste was "representative of the type of academic theater we wanted to present," he recalls. "U of L's production was our number one choice."

As Monsieur Baptiste played to enthusiastic audiences and rave reviews at the festival, the African American theater program (AATP), part of the theater arts department in the College of Arts and Sciences, came into its own.

Act I: Roots

When Stephen Schultz, former chairman of the theater arts department, first conceived the idea of AATP in 1993, he wanted to establish a program that was unlike any other in the country. He wanted to pique the interest of students nationally and internationally. And he wanted to attract quality faculty members to the department who would be exciting instructors and interesting colleagues.

"I've always admired African American playwriting and felt this could be an answer," says Schultz, who retired in July 2001. "In the end I believe forming the AATP was politically right, morally right and artistically right."

Multiculturalism and diversity have become American ideals over the last decade or so--at least in theory, says Russell Vandenbroucke, the new chair of the theater department.

"In the Department of Theatre Arts, these are not just buzzwords," he says. "They are part of the core of our daily lives thanks to the African American theater program."

The AATP focuses its curriculum on cultural traditions that are not derived from Western Europeans, says James Brennan, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

"It is an enriching opportunity for students," he says. "Additionally, the availability of programs such as the AATP and Pan-African studies department has attracted bright African American students who otherwise may not have had reason to consider the University of Louisville for their undergraduate work."

The goal of the AATP is to teach the history, theory, literature and performance of the African Diaspora, the term used to describe the scattering, or dispersion, of the African people throughout the world through slavery or migration during the past five centuries.

Through groundwork laid by a series of co-directors and the current leadership of Lundeana Thomas and Nefertiti Burton, the program is well on its way to becoming the premier academic opportunity for African Diaspora theater studies in the world.

Along with performance and design, African American theater is one of three areas of concentration a student may major in when earning a bachelor of science degree or master of fine arts degree in the theater department.

Students may choose from eight undergraduate courses in black theater, including topics in dramatic literature, African American women in theater, theatrical traditions of the African world, as well as acting and directing. The theater department also offers a graduate certificate in African American theater.

"For the most part, our curriculum was put in place to focus on the history of African American theater," Thomas says. "We want to mirror African American life through theater. The goal is shared respect among cultures.

"I respect the Shakespearian tradition because of its history. Someone else may not respect the work of (renowned African merican writer) August Wilson because they don't understand the traditions from which he writes, despite his having more plays on Broadway this century than any other playwright."

Earlier this month, the AATP staged Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone as the opening play of the University Theatre's 2002-2003 season. And in one of the proudest moments of the program's almost decade-long history, the AATP premiered a new version three years ago of Wilson's The Homecoming during its annual "Juneteenth Festival of New Works: A Cultural Celebration of Emancipation!"

For the past six years in mid-June, the Juneteenth festival has transformed the Department of Theatre Arts into a cultural learning lab full of workshops and new plays presented to audiences for the first time as staged readings.

Audiences have unprecedented opportunities to explore the plays with playwrights and scholars and even offer their own feedback, which is often incorporated into the scripts in progress. The plays are presented as part of a competition with cash awards going to playwrights.

Juneteenth festivals have offered two main stage theater productions each year. Past productions include such notable works as The Wiz and A Soldiers Play, and two world premieres by playwright and 1979 arts and sciences graduate Cedric Turner.

Act II: International Ties

Established as a truly unique collegiate theater program in the United States and having attracted students from all across the country, the AATP in recent years has been cultivating international relationships.

"I'm interested in theater that engages the world," Vandenbroucke says.

Instructors and students in the program have been invited to theater festivals in Ghana, Zimbabwe and Spain. And Burton, who has known theater professionals from South Africa since the mid-80s, is working to ensure that there will be long-term opportunities abroad for U of L theater students in that country.

"I worked as an associate producer on a play called Wake Up Africa with legendary South African producer Barney Simon," Burton says of a 1985 production in Boston.

Simon is the producer at the Market Street Theater in Johannesburg and was known for his work against apartheid. He invited Burton to South Africa many times throughout the years, but Burton resisted because of the political conditions in the country. Finally, in 2000, she made her first trip to Capetown.

Burton brought videos of the AATP productions of Flying West, A Soldier's Play and Fortunes of the Moor to share during her visit to the University of Capetown. She was amazed to find that students at the university had little interest in drawing on the theater traditions of Africa.

"The productions of African theater that I had seen brought to the United States led me to assume they would be doing cutting-edge theater there," Burton says. "The fact was that theater being taught in the universities in South Africa is very Eurocentric. The University of Capetown has no full-time black faculty teaching theater."

Theater programs in South African colleges are struggling to make changes in the post-apartheid era. They also deal with the same academic issues--money, tenure, ethnic diversity--that we have in this country, Burton says.

Through her work with the University of Capetown as well as the University of the Western Cape and the Guga S'Thebe Cultural Center in South Africa, Burton opened up some opportunities for U of L graduate students.

Graduate students will soon be taking AATP productions there. They will teach workshops and perform in a play written especially for U of L students by Fatima Dike, an activist known as "The Mother of Black Theater" in South Africa.

This will give students the opportunity to act as role models and may begin to kindle more interest in African theater among students there. In summer 2003 AATP plans to take 10 graduate students over, Burton says.

"We are working to make these sorts of international opportunities a regular part of our program," she says.

Act III: Prominence

International initiatives aren't the only thing on the horizon for the African American Theater Program. Next year marks the 10th anniversary of the AATP and several special programs and events are being considered as part of a year-long celebration.

Yet as the program celebrates its first 10 years, it will deal with many challenges--challenges faced by programs throughout the university.

"Dr. Thomas and Professor Burton are incredibly hard working and can definitely use additional resources," says Brennan, the arts and sciences dean. "My goal is to find the means to enhance their capability to move up in terms of a national profile."

Thomas and Burton already have several plans in the works to bring the program to further national prominence. They are making a concerted bid to host the Black Theater Network's 20th annual conference in 2006. They also are creating a program to take AATP productions on tour during the fall and spring semesters.

While these efforts will certainly heighten the profile of the African American theater program at U of L, the program is already on the radar of several schools, especially historically black colleges and universities.

"There are no graduate theater programs (at these institutions)," Thomas says. "Faculty at these schools want their students coming here for their graduate training. They feel assured that students will be able to continue their work in African American theater."

Jeff Dodd '85A is a Louisville-based freelance writer who serves on several committees and boards at U of L.