You know, despite the hardships, Kuumba was a big part of my life,” says Val Gray Ward, founder of one of Chicago’s first African-American independent theaters. “The growing pains were hell. I mean at one time we had to put cars and homes up on the block as collateral to keep it going.”
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Evolving out of the black arts movement and known for its rousing gospel, jazz, and blues productions, Kuumba Theater was started in 1968 in Ward’s south-side home. Lacking a formal theater house, the company’s players took their theater to the audience by going to schools, churches, and playgrounds to perform dances, poetry, street theater dialogues, and music–introducing the ritual form of theater to people who previously had little exposure to it. They relied heavily on improvisation and audience involvement, often using such methods as the call and response used in African-American churches.
But this spring the company was resurrected with the appointment of a new executive and creative director, Deborah Crable, former Ebony/Jet Showcase host and onetime owner of Teatro Tout Bagai!, once a small theater in Lakeview. Shortly after her appointment, Crable, in conjunction with Doris Craig Norris of Hidden Stages, reproduced Kuumba’s award-winning play The Amen Corner by James Baldwin. During the Democratic convention, the theater hosted its “I Too Am American” forum and a program with Dick Gregory. Both presentations offered hands-on experience for disadvantaged youth, a Kuumba legacy that Crable plans to carry on. “Our education outreach component includes taking programs into schools and combining scenes from the likes of Shakespeare with Pushkin,” she says.
