Career
Robert Hooks is regarded, variously, as a gifted artist who has broken color barriers on stage, in film, and on television. A leading man when there were few African American matinee idols. He originated roles on the New York stage in such classics as Dutchman, A Taste of Honey, and Where’s Daddy? for which he won the Theatre World Award. He was the first African American male lead on a television drama, the original N.Y.P.D.
In 1968, Hooks was the host of the new public affairs television program, Like It Is.
Famously, Hooks, along with Douglas Turner Ward, founded The Negro Ensemble Company (NEC). He then brought Gerald Krone in as Production Manager. The NEC is credited with the launch of the careers of many major Black artists of all disciplines, while creating a body of performance literature over the last thirty years, providing the backbone of African-American theatrical classics. This important theater company has produced plays by Charles Fuller, Wole Soyinka, Peter Weiss, Derek Walcott, Samm Art Williams, Leslie Lee, Joseph A. Walker, and many others.
Additionally, Hooks is the sole founder of two significant Black theatre companies: the DC Black Repertory Company, and New York’s Group Theatre Workshop, which was created to mentor the talents of New York’s disadvantaged youth. He brought in Dr. Barbara Ann Teer to help teach classes and develop the workshop.
“This was our Group Theatre Workshop! culled from the underprivileged communities of New York’s five working-class boroughs. The first-ever teenager’s theatre arts group! Many students went on to big success in the entertainment industry! Every major American city should have such an outlet for its hungry young talent!“
“The Group Theater Workshop (the first and ONLY Black teenage theatre company in America…ever!) Here is what a top professional New York theatre producer (and creator of the NY Shakespeare Festival) thought of this dynamic young theatre group.”
“Saturday morning classes were held in the living room of my Chelsea apartment (circa 1964.) The Kurt Vonnegut quote, James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes, poems, and many other Black literary materials ‘lit up’ the excitement of these workshop sessions at our new Group Theatre Workshop.
“All of it was informal (as you can see here! where I guess I should have been standing front and center ) but Oh! so vitally important to the young wannabee thespians getting the chance to show their talents. Everything was free to those New York youngsters who wanted to learn the art of acting and of the new and burgeoning Black theatre movement!”
“Here are some young artists/students from my very first drama company… The Group Theatre Workshop (circa 1964…a tuition-free arts program and the precursor to the Negro Ensemble Company…and also the model for its stellar training arm). From left to right.. Bostic Van Felton, Hattie Winston, Maxine Griffith, Pamela Jones, and me. These four young artists, together with thirty other teenagers from the mean streets of New York, changed their own lives even as they sowed the seeds of change for others.”
23 Teen-Agers to Perform ‘We Real Cool’ in City Parks
This is a rare image from a performance by The Group Theatre Workshop (GTW), my very first theatre company (circa 1964) featuring 25 teenage New York artists. In the summer of 1964 these young teenage artists, a part of the brand new Group Theatre Workshop (GTW), were getting a performance chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to perform in the New York professional theatre arena as youngsters! Which created a historic opportunity for these young theatre acolytes of color to move forward and find their possible careers in the arts. The show I produced and directed — “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks –toured with Joe Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater, where I was starring as “Henry V” in the evenings, while GTW performed “…Cool” in the afternoons for the neighborhood youngsters. I also arranged for union salaries from Papp for all the young GTW actors. Some in the cast were: Hattie Winston, Antonio Fargas, Monti Ellison, Daphne Reid (then Daphne Maxwell), James Long, Hampton Clanton, Bostic Van Felton, Tina Nurse, Margo Chan, and other talented Workshop teens!
23 Teen-Agers to Perform ‘We Real Cool’ in City Parks
Twenty-three teenagers, who are members of Robert Hooks’s nonprofit Group Theater Workshop, will act in “We Real Cool” during the New York Shakespeare Festival’s Mobile Theater tour of the five boroughs.
June 29, 1965
After finishing a speech on the Black theatre movement, I loved mingling and hanging out with these DC students. I had just returned to my hometown to begin building the DC Black Repertory Company!…
In my element here!
Photo courtesy of Howard University
