Actor, director, producer, and activist Robert Hooks and the late Douglas Turner Ward, producer, director, playwright, and actor, discuss their work founding the Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) in 1966, its rise to prominence, the controversies encountered through the years, and the group's struggle for survival. The Negro Ensemble Company originated important plays including Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, The River Niger, Zooman and the Sign, A Soldier's Play, and Home, and helped to launch the careers of Debbie Allen, Angela Bassett, Adolph Caesar, Laurence Fishburne, Danny Glover, Louis Gossett, Jr., David Alan Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, S. Epatha Merkerson, Phylicia Rashad, Esther Rolle, and Denzel Washington, among many others. This video recording produced by the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive was originally recorded on April 27, 1987 to mark the 20th anniversary of the founding of the NEC. It is presented here online for the first time in honor of Douglas Turner Ward, who passed away at the age of 90 earlier this year on February 20, 2021.
New York City, NY; NYC