In May 2009 with the support of The Heritage Lottery Fund we launched the project from the Margins to the Mainstream.  This project aims to highlight and to share the major contribution that black writers, actors, directors, dancers and producers made and continue to make to British theatre. 

When Amiri Baraka (Previously Leroi Jones) coined the phrase “Black Theatre during the 1960’s he sought a sharp distinction between those artists who were involved in theatre and those who sought consciously and deliberately to create a theatre that drew on the cultural traditions of African Americans and to create a theatre that reflected the concerns, experiences and aspirations of African Americans.   At the same time a similar development was taking place in the Caribbean with the work of Derek Walcott (Trinidad Workshop) and later Dennis Scott (Jamaica school of Drama).   It was to the Caribbean that artists in Britain looked to for their references.  During the 1940’s Robert Adams the Guyanese actor started the Negro Repertory Arts Theatre, one of the first professional Black theatre companies in Britain. Errol John’s “Moon on Rainbow Shawl’ (1950’s) played to big houses and received numerous awards.  Jamal Ali’s (Black feet In the Snow made it on to the TV screens during the 1960’s but it was during the 1970’s and 80’s that saw a string of companies taking up the mantle.  Companies such as the Dark& Light Theatre of Brixton, Black Theatre Cooperative, Temba, L’Overture, Keskidee Centre, Double Edge, Staunch Poets and players, and Talawa producing and presenting the work of writers such as Alfred Fagon, Edgar White, Caryll Phillips, Mustapha Matura, Farouk Dhondy Amani Napthali, Don Kinch and others.  Today Roy Williams and Kwame Kwei Armagh are regulars on the main stages of British theatre.

This project though will focus on what was happening in the Midlands during that time.   We will be hosting a number of events during the year, ranging from lectures to exhibitions.  At the end of the project we will produce a magazine and a DVD.   So keep your eyes on this Space.

We are also looking for any material you have in your desk, cupboard it could be an leaflet, a poster, a review, a photograph anything that will shine some light on that period and on the work of the artists.  Please send it to us. If we are not able to use it we will send it on to the Central Library to be archived.