by David C. Barnett
The roots of the country鈥檚 oldest African American theater were planted a century ago on the eastside of Cleveland. Karamu House was founded as a place to offer artistic opportunities for the hundreds of black migrants from the South, drawn to the city by the promise of factory jobs.
Broadway and film star Bill Cobbs first took the stage here as an amateur, fifty years ago. He recalls being inspired --- and a little scared --- when he made his Karamu debut.
"There was something magical to me about coming to Karamu House and getting on stage for the first time," he says. "I think a part of that was having known about the theatre here for so many years and not having the nerve to come and be a part of it."
Poet and playwright Langston Hughes grew-up in Cleveland and later tried out plays on this stage. Actors like Robert Guillaume and Ron O鈥橬eal were Karamu alumni. And although the late actor and Cleveland native Ruby Dee never trod the boards at Karamu, she and her husband Ossie Davis supported it with special performances and master classes. In a 2006 interview, Dee reflected on Karamu鈥檚 track record in nurturing young artists:
"Karamu was a place for the new talents to go and try out. These people are the backbone of the kind of thought that changes worlds."
Karamu was a product of the settlement house movement of the early 1900s. A 鈥渟ettlement house鈥� offered education and social services to the new immigrants from Europe and the American South. Oberlin College graduates Rowena and Russell Jelliffe established what they called the 鈥淧layhouse Settlement鈥� in 1915, aimed at teaching theater skills. Northeast Ohio actor and director Dorothy Silver was a close friend of the Jelliffes:
"They were the kind of people who were there in the morning when you came in and were there at night, when you left."
Silver says they made a habit of going against expectations. For instance, they established mixed-race performances at their theater, years before there was a Civil Rights movement.
"Then, and now," she says, "Karamu believes in, what was then called, 'alternative casting' --- which means, you get the part if you鈥檙e the best person for it. Period."
The theater was christened 鈥淜aramu鈥� in 1927, after the Swahili word for a place of enjoyment or feasting. Dorothy Silver鈥檚 husband Reuben was put in charge of the feast as artistic director of Karamu in 1955 --- a job he held for two decades until he was asked to step down in favor of new, African American leadership, in 1976.
"I thought it was a mistake; it was a mistake for the institution,' Silver says. "We probably would have stayed there for the rest of our life. But, I continue to wish them the best."
Actor and director Tony Sias was named President and CEO of Karamu this past September. He says, "Back at the time in the late 60s-early 70s, there was a shift in the mission to be run for and by African Americans."
Sias adds that very few theaters were producing work about the black experience, 40 years ago, but that鈥檚 really changed, and he wants to develop an even greater diversity.
"When we talk about honoring the African American experience, it鈥檚 to say it鈥檚 still a part of our focus, but we still have an opportunity to engage the American theater community in a way that is reflective of our country, and the world in which we live in."
The University of Maryland recently published a study that describes a bleak economic landscape facing African American arts organizations. Theater companies struggle for funding, and new audiences --- especially young ones --- are hard to attract. Tony Sias says that the challenge is to create and produce theatrical programs that they鈥檙e interested in.
A forty-foot mural of Ruby Dee towers over the East 89 th street wall of Karamu, speaking not only to her prominence, but to the legacy of a century-old theater. A theater that鈥檚 looking to embrace a new world.
