American Negro Theatre

The American Negro Theatre (ANT) co-founded by Frederick O'Neal and Abram Hill, was established to provide black actors, playwrights, directors and other theatre-related professionals with opportunities to work in productions that illustrated the diversity of black life. ANT's program was essentially divided into three categories: stage productions, a training program and radio programs.

From 1940-1949, nineteen plays, twelve of them original, were produced by ANT. "On Striver's Row," "Walk Hard--Talk Loud," (both written by Hill), and "Rain" were well-received plays. However, commercial success struck with Philip Yordan's "Anna Lucasta." ANT also exhibited the talents of several now well-known actors and actresses, some for the first time, including Ruby Dee, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, Alvin and Alice Childress, Hilda Simms, Earl Hyman, Isabel Sanford, Vinie Burroughs, Helen Martin, Roger Furman, Maxwell Glanville, Clarice Taylor, Gordon Heath and Hilda Hayes.

...