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North Carolina Black Repertory Company25 Marvtastic YearsThe North Carolina Black Repertory Company was founded in 1979 by Larry Leon Hamlin as the first Black professional theatre company in North Carolina. The North Carolina Black Repertory Company or Black Rep continues to serve as one of the premier Black Theatre companies in the United States with its roots firmly planted in the ongoing struggle for Black liberation. The North Carolina Black Repertory Company is located in Winston-Salem, NC. The North Carolina Black Repertory Company also hosts the internationally acclaimed biennial National Black Theatre Festival. North Carolina Black Repertory Company: 25 Marvtastic Years is the first book devoted entirely to the subject of this important cultural force in Black Theatre, in American Theatre and in the hearts and minds of Black people throughout the South, the USA, the African Continent and throughout the African Diaspora. This formidable theatre company along with its tremendously successful offspring, the biennial National Black Theatre Festival, held in odd-numbered years in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, impacts the sensibilities and the psyche of the millions of people everywhere on earth who genuinely care about and defend the universal values of suffering humanity. Open Hand Publishing, LLC is pleased to bring this book to life; for it is fully in keeping with our mission “to make books available that both inform and nurture a humanistic spirit.” We are especially proud that Larry Leon Hamlin, Founder, Producer & Artistic Director of the North Carolina Black Repertory Company, has contributed a thought-provoking introduction and has offered guidance during the course of the entire process of creating and producing this stirring tale. He has also generously provided the majority of the photos contained herein. These photos visually document the great achievements of the NCBRC or Black Rep. Dr. Felecia Piggott McMillan, the author, has literally grown up with the Black Rep. In 1979 she was a Senior at East Forsyth High School in Kernersville, NC (just outside Winston-Salem) when Larry Leon Hamlin arrived in Winston-Salem and began his prodigious efforts to create there what is now known as ‘Black Theatre Holy Ground.” Over the past twenty-five years, Felecia McMillan has attended every production, performed in several, and served a number of times as emcee for the Youth Celebrity Project of the National Black Theatre Festival. She is currently a member of the NCBRC Theatre Guild Board and is a Charter Member of the Marvtastic Society. She has also written articles on the Black Rep and the Festival for The Chronicle, the local Black newspaper, in her capacity as a reporter. In 2002, she received her Ph.D. in African American Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her doctoral thesis is entitled, “Locating the Neo-Black Aesthetic: Playwrights of the North Carolina Black Repertory Company React to the Black Arts Movement.” Clearly, Dr. Felecia P. McMillan’s life has well prepared her to write this book. The result of this collaborative effort is not only the first book on the subject; but it promises to be the most authoritative as well. The North Carolina Black Repertory Company: 25 Marvtastic Years is for theatre people: actors, writers, costume, set and light designers, directors, and producers. It is for the several thousand people of Winston-Salem, NC and elsewhere in the African Diaspora and in Africa who have made generous contributions to help build this Company over the years. It is even for those who aspire to be successful entrepreneurs. Above all it is for lovers of the dramatic, on stage, screen and television, lovers of Black culture, lovers of Black people, and lovers of humanity. Bask in the glow of success of this Marvtastic theatre company! Let its accomplishments be an inspiration, a springboard, to even more magnificent cultural contributions in the future! Enjoy! Richard A. Koritz |