I was a college freshman when it happened. Back in 2007, YouTube was still new, when it felt less like an algorithm and more like a hallway you could wander down and accidentally find something that changed you.
I don’t remember what I was searching for. Probably nothing important. That’s usually how it works.
Then a grainy clip loaded on the screen: Porgy and Bess.
The image wavered slightly, the sound thin, like it had traveled a long way to reach me.
Bess, You Is My Woman Now.
There was Dorothy Dandridge, beautiful in a way that felt almost dangerous, like her beauty had exacted a price I didn’t yet know how to name. And there was Sidney Poitier, upright and steady, holding himself with the kind of dignity that looks effortless until you realize how much effort it takes.
I stopped whatever I’d been doing.
The dorm room faded.
Time thinned out.
I didn’t know it then, but I was watching something more than a scene. I was watching Black people insist on tenderness in a world that rarely allowed it. I was watching survival masquerading as romance.
Growing up, my access to movies was limited, whatever the local video store happened to have. Theater was even rarer. Something distant. Something reserved for people with money, exposure, or permission.
Still, even as a child, I loved theater. Loved the idea of it. Loved the thought that somewhere behind a curtain or inside a screen people were allowed to be loud, expressive, complicated. Allowed to be too much and applauded instead of corrected.
What I didn’t realize was how much I needed that permission myself.
When access finally came, real access, it felt like coming up for air after being trapped underwater too long.
Growing up, I learned early how to mute myself.
How to mask.
How to soften my edges.
Expression came with consequences. Silence came with safety.
So I learned restraint. Learned how to fold myself smaller.
I think that’s why theater and film reached me the way they did. Watching performances felt like borrowing someone else’s freedom for a while. Like standing in the wings while other people told the truth out loud.
But it wasn’t just escape.
I’ve always been fascinated by people. Fascinated by their contradictions, their quiet longings, the stories they carry without ever saying them. Theater and film let me experience those stories fully. Sound. Movement. Breath. Silence. All at once.
It was the closest thing I knew to understanding without explanation.
Somewhere along the way, I became fixated on the Black hero.
Not because of suffering but because of permission. The kind of permission their lives created for the rest of us to find joy even while hemmed in by circumstance.
Their paths were documented.
Because they were documented, they couldn’t be erased entirely.
And because they couldn’t be erased, they could be returned to.
Studied. Challenged. Expanded.
I wanted to protect that lineage. Still do.
But protection alone isn’t enough.
I want to challenge it, to ask more of it.
To push it toward greater honesty, greater imagination.
To surface its hidden treasures, the ones planted by geniuses like August Wilson, Lorraine Hansberry, Ryan Coogler, and Lee Daniels, often meant for us to recognize quietly, like secrets passed hand to hand.
I want to share that recognition.
To say: You’re not imagining this. It’s here. It’s always been here.
Years later, when I finally had the means to attend Broadway regularly, the circle closed.
Seeing the revival of Porgy and Bess, this time embodied by the incomparable Audra McDonald and the distinguished Norm Lewis, felt like returning to a place I’d first visited through a laptop screen years earlier.
What once felt distant, untouchable, was now alive, breathing, standing right in front of me.
It wasn’t just inspiration.
It was responsibility.
This blog is the space I didn’t have as a boy.
When access was limited.
When language hadn’t arrived yet.
When I didn’t know that what I was reaching for was a lineage.
Here, I’ll write about Black Hollywood and Black Broadway, where they’ve been, where they are, and where I believe they’re going. I’ll write with love, critique, reverence, and curiosity.
This isn’t nostalgia.
It’s stewardship.
This is me coming up for air.
And if you’ve ever felt like you’ve been holding your breath too…
you’re welcome here.
The Black Playbill 
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