{"id":72,"featured":0,"modified":"2025-07-08 18:27:00","latitude":40.445127,"longitude":-79.974472,"title":"Black Horizon Theatre Company","address":"2250 Centre Avenue, Pittsburgh PA","thumbnail":"https:\/\/hillhistory.org\/files\/square_thumbnails\/35e069d968d39ecaaa88282adf030154.jpg","creator":["J. Roger Davis"],"description":"

In 1968, student activist at the University of Pittsburgh founded the Black Action Society (BAS), an organization to serve the needs and interests of Black students by building community and \u201cproviding educational, political, and social programming relative to the Black experience.\u201d<\/span>
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<\/span> As part of this effort, Pitt's BAS developed an arts organization to support Black writers, artists and performers. This idea was modeled after the Black Arts Repertory Theatre in Harlem, founded in 1965 by playwright and poet Amiri Baraka, usually considered the founding of a national Black Arts Movement.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

The BAS would meet at a restaurant called the Pan Fried Fish on Wylie Ave. Known for having the best fish sandwiches for miles around, the restaurant was a gathering spot for students and artists in the neighborhood to express themselves freely, creating music, poetry, and art under a united cause.
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A Grand Entrance<\/span><\/h3>\r\n

<\/span>One night, artist and native resident Frank Floyd Hightower was exhibiting his photography and leading a discussion on his work at the restaurant when he met August Wilson, Rob Penny, and Curtiss E. Porter, who were playwrights, social activists, and artists in their own right. Penny and Porter were also co-directors of the University of Pittsburgh's Africana Studies Program. That same night, they also met Sala Udin and Sakina Abdul A\u2019la, an actress and women\u2019s rights advocate. This group of friends became instrumental in the local Black Arts movement and together founded Black Horizon Theatre. Their goal was to establish a community theater aimed at raising social consciousness within the Black community and the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n

The A. Leo Weil School auditorium at 2250 Centre Ave became home to Black Horizon Theatre, and they staged plays there from 1968 to 1972. The school\u2019s principal allowed them to use the auditorium at no charge.

Black Horizon Theatre Company portrayed characters struggling with inequality, opening the audience\u2019s and community\u2019s eyes to the constant obstacles African Americans faced. The company initially charged only 50 cents for admission to their plays. \u201cWe literally went into the street a half hour before the show and talked people into going in,\u201d recalled Wilson years later. \u201cOnce they got in, they really liked it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\r\n

August Wilson's Contributions<\/span><\/h3>\r\nIn many ways, the experience of Black Horizon Theatre was responsible for initiating a transformation in August Wilson\u2019s writing; poetry had been his primary focus through the mid-1960s, but he volunteered to direct the company\u2019s productions - even though he had no previous experience. Instead, he taught himself the fundamentals from a book checked out from the local library.\u00a0 As his experience in theater grew, his creative focus also began to shift to playwriting.\r\n

Black Horizon Theatre dispersed by the mid-1970s. In 1975, Dr. Vernell A. Lillie, a University of Pittsburgh professor, continued Black Horizons\u2019 legacy by founding the Kuntu Repertory Theatre.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

The following year, August Wilson brought his early playwriting effort, <\/span>Homecoming<\/span><\/i>, to Kuntu. It was his first play to be produced by a resident company at the University of Pittsburgh. Wilson won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for his Broadway show <\/span>Fences<\/span><\/i> and later won a second Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for <\/span>The Piano Lesson<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

While Wilson was the most prominent author to come out of the Pittsburgh Black Arts scene and Black Horizon Theatre, it is important to recognize and appreciate the Black Horizon Theater, and the creative collaborators who helped shape and nurture his remarkable talent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>","sponsor":"","subtitle":"Local school served as performance site for Black Arts movement","accessinfo":"","lede":"","website":"","related_resources":["Glasco, Laurence A.\u00a0August Wilson: Pittsburgh Places in His Life and Plays<\/i>. Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, 2015.","

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National Archives. \u201cBlack Arts Movement (1965-1975),<\/a>\u201d June 11, 2020.<\/div>\r\n<\/span><\/div>"],"files":{"https:\/\/hillhistory.org\/files\/fullsize\/35e069d968d39ecaaa88282adf030154.jpg":{"id":188,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"Black Horizon performers","thumbnail":"https:\/\/hillhistory.org\/files\/square_thumbnails\/35e069d968d39ecaaa88282adf030154.jpg","description":"Black Horizon Theater mid-performance. | Frank F. Hightower Photograph Collection<\/a> | Frank Floyd Hightower"},"https:\/\/hillhistory.org\/files\/fullsize\/a30e583d54231425d6bf0c07dec42f99.jpg":{"id":189,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"Rob Penny reading onstage as part of the Black Horizon Theater.","thumbnail":"https:\/\/hillhistory.org\/files\/square_thumbnails\/a30e583d54231425d6bf0c07dec42f99.jpg","description":"Frank F. Hightower Photograph Collection<\/a> | Frank Floyd Hightower"},"https:\/\/hillhistory.org\/files\/fullsize\/d701e34365cf2322878e301823b338ef.jpg":{"id":187,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"Black Horizon Theater rehearsal","thumbnail":"https:\/\/hillhistory.org\/files\/square_thumbnails\/d701e34365cf2322878e301823b338ef.jpg","description":"Black Horizon Theater rehearsal with Latif Baba Ali (Rocco Swain) and unidentified actors. | Frank F. Hightower Photograph Collection<\/a> | Frank Floyd Hightower"},"https:\/\/hillhistory.org\/files\/fullsize\/cccabb47263a8026d2f97836d074b6e9.jpg":{"id":190,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"\"To Commemorate Malcolm's B-Day\"","thumbnail":"https:\/\/hillhistory.org\/files\/square_thumbnails\/cccabb47263a8026d2f97836d074b6e9.jpg","description":"Article in the New Pittsburgh Courier<\/em> describing Black Horizons Theatre performance at the Weil school to commemorate the birthday of Black activist leader Malcolm X. | New Pittsburgh Courier<\/em>"}}}