We’re talking about our lives, the fullness and the richness of our lives. My mother would call it the science and secret of soul, that whether you were in a Pentecostal Baptist church or you were with James Brown, once that soul hits you, everybody — whether you spoke English or you’re touring in Japan or Spain — when that vibratory soul force hits you, everybody turns on.
Sade Lythcott, the CEO of the National Black Theatre, the longest continually run black theater in New York, visits Lit NYC to talk with hosts Amy Sohn and Harry Siegel about the theater her mother, Dr. Barbara Ann Teer, founded in 1968, how she found her way back to it after charting a different path in life, the new building the theater is putting up now to ensure its future and much more:
https://rss.buzzsprout.com/2616688.rss?nationalblacktheatre
I’ve worked in fashion my whole life. I was one of those– I was like a black sheep of my family. Everyone’s an artist, everyone’s involved somehow in theater… My mom and dad were these radical artists, and I wanted no part of it. I talk a lot now, but I was a very quiet kid. Their presence took up so much space. My mom had three kids: Me, my brother and the theater, and her favorite child was the theater because it was the most petulant.
So I found my voice in fashion, and I ran towards it for dear life so that I could have my own space. I was naturally a very gifted modern dancer and there was that point in my life where I had to choose whether I was going to dance or not, and I remember defiantly choosing to turn my back on an art form that I loved, because I just didn’t want to be, ironically, in my mom’s shadow…
My mom’s passing was very abrupt. I talked to her at five o’clock the evening before because Lenny [Kravitz] asked me to come to Paris to shoot a video with him, but I didn’t have my passport so I called my mom to see if she could FedEx me my passport. I was in Miami, and she just said how stressed and tired she was but she would do it, because when Paris calls, you always answer, and the answer is always yes.
And then the next call I got was five in the morning. It was her assistant, who said she was dead. So I stumbled my way back to New York. She passed in 2008 and another force of nature in our theater company, Tunde Samuel, passed of a heart attack in 2006, so the organization was really on the ropes and the board asked me if I would step in for six months.
It was very clear that there was no transition plan, and I think the staff was bare bones at time, and so my yes came from coming back home from this incredible memorial service, knowing that this was nothing I was interested in, truly, and opening more mail. So many people wrote letters and notes of condolences. and there was this old FedEx envelope I opened up, I looked inside, and it was my passport. It had been rerouted from Miami back to me with my mom’s last words. And she said, “Life is short. Lean in.”
And I thought, huh, I could lean in for six months. I don’t know shit about theater, and I don’t know if I’m interested, but what I do know is that this organization, her life, deserves not to be in vain. It deserves a shot, and what I can commit to do is wake up every morning, put one foot in front of the other, and write this Black woman back into her story.
She would say, “Where there is love, there is no fear.” I love that woman so fiercely I feel — I shouldn’t say this out loud, right — fearless in the choices and decisions I’m going to make. And I know that I’m guided because her vision was so clear. Just like our ancestors who planted seeds that they would never see, I get the privilege of harvesting her seeds and no one knew them better than me.
Lit NYC comes out weekly, usually on Fridays. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, through RSS or wherever podcasts are found, or listen to all the episodes right here at The City.
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The post LISTEN: The Liberators of the National Black Theatre Have Big Plans for the Future appeared first on THE CITY – NYC News.
