In the United States, there are many nonprofit theater organizations that have filled the role of cultural institutions for communities that are not served by larger for-profit theater organizations. In New York City, there are several smaller theater organizations that preserve the diverse range of plays and musicals written by African American and Hispanic playwrights and composers. It is against this background that director and educator Keith Lee Grant has developed a significant body of work focused on the production of plays by artists of color.
Keith Lee Grant is an American theater director, choreographer, actor, and educator. His professional career has included work on Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional, and academic theater. He is the founding Artistic Director of the Harlem Repertory Theatre, which has been operating in Harlem for more than twenty years. During Grant’s tenure, the organization has focused on well-known plays and musicals by African Americans and Hispanics, making it a producer of culturally specific repertory with low ticket prices for the Harlem community.
At the Harlem Repertory Theatre, Grant was actively involved in directing and choreographing a broad range of productions that were associated with well-known African American playwrights. These productions included Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, George C. Wolfe’s The Colored Museum, Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide, Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman, and Langston Hughes’s Tambourines to Glory. Each of these plays has a very important place in the history of twentieth-century Black theater. By producing these plays in East Harlem, the theater company ensured that these plays were kept in the public consciousness, even as they were pushed to the side of Broadway.
The musical theater offerings at the Harlem Repertory Theatre followed a similar trajectory. Productions such as The Wiz, West Side Story, In the Heights, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Dreamgirls, Jamaica, Vodu, and Once on This Island were mounted. These productions were written by Black or Latino book and music writers or featured stories that were centered on communities of color. They also provided opportunities for actors and dancers of color to take center stage, with Grant directing or choreographing a number of professional and university productions, many of which were mounted at the Harlem Repertory Theatre.
Grant’s search for culturally specific repertoire did not end in Harlem. At Dartmouth College, Grant directed James Baldwin’s Blues for Mister Charlie. This play was written during the Civil Rights era and was based on the murder of Emmett Till. By mounting this production, Grant was able to bring the dramatic writing of James Baldwin into the academic environment, introducing students and regional audiences to a very politicized American play.
His collaborations with Theatreworks USA further demonstrate a sustained interest in dramatizing the lives of major Black historical figures for national audiences. Grant directed The Color of Justice, a play about Thurgood Marshall, which toured nationally in 2003, 2004, 2007, and 2008. He also directed Play to Win in 2006, a national tour centered on Jackie Robinson. In 2008, he directed a workshop on Rosa Parks, dramatizing the life of the civil rights activist. These projects circulated beyond New York, reaching audiences across multiple states and aligning theatrical storytelling with educational outreach.
Grant’s operatic endeavors continue to follow a pattern of there being “connection to Black/African American historical experiences and people” from his premiere of The Promise at the Germantown Performing Arts Center in Memphis, TN (the opera tells a story about Martin Luther King Jr.) to directing excerpts from Margaret Garner at the Cincinnati Opera (a work based on the life of an enslaved woman who killed her child rather than see her returned to slavery). In addition to how historically meaningful these projects were, there was also a racial identity component; all performers in the productions were people of color, reflecting the racial history depicted in the stories.
When compared to Harlem Repertory Theatre, which was a small nonprofit instead of a commercially based production company, the theatrical productions produced by them received media coverage in several media outlets, including The New York Times, Playbill, Amsterdam News, TDF, and StageBuddy. They also received recognition from AUDELCO (an organization that celebrates excellence in Black theater). Grant’s work with Harlem Repertory Theatre received AUDELCO Awards for Best Director and Best Choreographer of a Musical for The Wiz (2009), and AUDELCO Awards for Best Director of a Musical and Outstanding Musical Production for Dreamgirls (2012), along with a nomination for Best Choreographer for the same production. There were also numerous other productions that received nominations from AUDELCO for several years, including Best Revival and Best Musical Production.
The company’s location in Harlem shaped its operational identity. Grant has often discussed the importance of affordable ticket prices as part of the organization’s mission. Over its more than twenty year history, the Harlem Repertory Theatre operated in both West Harlem and East Harlem, while maintaining a focus on accessibility for neighborhood audiences. By keeping ticket prices below Broadway levels, the theater aimed to remain accessible to local audiences. Over time, the company maintained a regular production schedule that combined revivals of established works with programming connected to the community.
In addition to its administrative leadership, Grant’s broader engagement in directing and choreography included works by or about people of color in academic settings. Beginning in 2001, during his tenure as a teacher at the City College of New York and eventually as a full professor, he mentored and inspired performing students for productions that frequently incorporated African American dramatic literature and musical theater. His positions at Cornell, Dartmouth, the University of Connecticut, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Western Illinois University, and the New School introduced him to different academic settings in which culturally specific theater was included in the curriculum.
There is a clear pattern of programs that showcase Black and Hispanic writers and artists through the cumulative body of work created by Keith Lee Grant. Grant is not only a performer and choreographer but was a producing director who made choices about the repertoire at the Harlem Repertory Theater as well as in academic theaters. He has built a career based on his engagement with American and African American theatrical traditions through his long-term leadership of theater companies, producing and touring productions, as well as through his educational efforts that have been ongoing for more than 20 years of professional involvement in this field.
