“A Past Becomes a Heritage: The Negro Units of the Federal Theatre Project” is a program being presented March 30 at 7:30 p.m., on Zoom, by the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Theater. It will feature recorded readings by professional actors of excerpts of plays written by Black playwrights in the New Deal-era Federal Theatre Project’s Negro Units, as the units were titled then.

The readings will serve as a springboard for a live panel-led conversation on this particular moment in Black and theatrical history. The event kicks off a new partnership between Princeton’s Lewis Center for the Arts and New York City-based collective CLASSIX, an organization dedicated to expanding the classical theater canon through an exploration of dramatic works by Black writers. This event is a Princeton Humanities Council Magic Project.

Artists and scholars of CLASSIX including theatrical directors Christina Franklin, Kimille Howard, and Dominique Rider are involved, in collaboration with the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Theater. Panelists include Princeton professors Autumn Womack and Kinohi Nishikawa, CLASSIX member Arminda Thomas, moderated by NYU professor Michael Dinwiddie. 

The event is free to the public. Visit arts.princeton.edu/classix to register.