Negro Ensemble Company

Negro Ensemble Company (New York). With a substantial financial contribution from the Ford Foundation, the group was organized in 1967 by Robert Hooks, Douglas Turner Ward, and Gerald Krone. Their aim was to establish “a place wherein Black theatrical talent could be continuously presented—without regard to the whims of commercial theatre.” During its history the company won numerous awards and additional grants, but it also faced periods of financial strain, which often showed in their low‐budget productions. Yet the quality of the acting remained outstanding and several of the original scripts premiered, such as The River Niger (1973) and A Soldier's Play (1981), were also superior. By the 1990s the company lost its Off‐Broadway home and was presenting shows only sporadically, and in 1997 it quietly ceased operation. Yet it remains the longest‐lived African‐American producing organization in the history of New York theatre. Robert HOOKS (b. 1937) began his professional theatre career as an actor in the touring production of A Raisin in the Sun (1959). After appearing Off Broadway in The Blacks (1962), he was acclaimed for his performance as the victimized Clay in LeRoi Jones's Dutchman (1964). Hooks later performed in many Negro Ensemble productions before going to Washington and founding the D.C. Black Repertory Company.