Robert Hooks – December 17, 2014

Per Dale Shields who chose this photo to illustrate the important principles stated below: Robert Hooks…Sometimes… if you look at a photograph… it speaks volumes. Teach the children. Share your stories. Pass on our history. “Each one, teach one.” {Each One Teach One is an African-American Proverb. The original author is unknown.} This phrase originated in the United States during slavery, when Africans were denied education, including learning to read.

Many, if not most slaves were kept in a state of ignorance about anything beyond their immediate circumstances which were under the control of owners, the lawmakers, and the authorities. When a slave learned or was taught to read, it became his duty to teach someone else, spawning the phrase “Each one, teach one.” In the first half of the 20th century, the phrase was applied to the work of a Christian missionary, Dr. Frank Laubach, who utilized the concept to help address poverty and illiteracy in the Philippines. Many sources cite Dr. Laubach as creating the saying, but many others believe that he simply used it to advance the cause of ending illiteracy in the world.

In the 1996 novel Push by Sapphire as well as the 2009 movie Precious the expression is used as the name of an alternative school that the principal character is attending after being expelled from public school.”}

It was 1958. I was living in Philadelphia, studying acting and theatre, and seeing many plays coming through town on their way to Broadway. To my supreme delight, opening at the Walnut Street Theatre came the first all-Black play destined for Broadway. Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun.” Of course, I was there on opening night and was viscerally blown away at what was unleashed on that stage. A Black family story, with strong nuanced roles for Black actors, that I could deeply relate to as a Black man and as an aspiring actor. Backstage afterwards I met most of the Raisin cast members, and was so thrilled that finally I had something to encourage the fire in me to be a professional thespian. The two actors I immediately felt a connection with were Lonne Elder, III and Douglas Turner Ward, both highly intelligent and caring artists. They were just excellent in this extraordinary play, Lonne in a feature role, and Doug playing a smaller role while understudying Sidney Poitier. And it was such a pleasant surprise to discover they were both amazingly brilliant playwrights and highly political. After moving to New York and YES… Even joining that cast on Broadway, we became very close friends. Some called us The Three Musketeers! But what brilliant writers they both were! Masterful! Douglas had written his two one-act “comedies” “Happy Ending” and “Day of Absence.” Lonne had created his profound Harlem family drama “Ceremonies in Dark Old Men.” By that time I had accomplished my own dreams as not only a successful actor, but a professional play producer and creator of opportunities for others. I am deeply proud to have been the original producer of several works authored by two of the most important men in my lifetime! LONNE, DOUGLAS, BOBBY! THE THREE MUSKETEERS! 

“It was 1958. I was living in Philadelphia, studying acting and theatre, and seeing many plays coming through town on their way to Broadway. To my supreme delight, opening at the Walnut Street Theatre came the first all-Black play destined for Broadway. Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun.” Of course, I was there on opening night and was viscerally blown away at what was unleashed on that stage. A Black family story, with strong nuanced roles for Black actors, that I could deeply relate to as a Black man and as an aspiring actor. Backstage afterwards I met most of the Raisin cast members, and was so thrilled that finally I had something to encourage the fire in me to be a professional thespian. The two actors I immediately felt a connection with were Lonne Elder, III and Douglas Turner Ward, both highly intelligent and caring artists. They were just excellent in this extraordinary play, Lonne in a feature role, and Doug playing a smaller role while understudying Sidney Poitier. And it was such a pleasant surprise to discover they were both amazingly brilliant playwrights and highly political. After moving to New York and YES… Even joining that cast on Broadway, we became very close friends. Some called us The Three Musketeers! But what brilliant writers they both were! Masterful! Douglas had written his two one-act “comedies” “Happy Ending” and “Day of Absence.” Lonne had created his profound Harlem family drama “Ceremonies in Dark Old Men.” By that time I had accomplished my own dreams as not only a successful actor, but a professional play producer and creator of opportunities for others. I am deeply proud to have been the original producer of several works authored by two of the most important men in my lifetime! LONNE, DOUGLAS, BOBBY! THE THREE MUSKETEERS!”

*~*

HOW IT ALL STARTED…

“The Negro Ensemble Company was fortunate in having phenomenal theatre photographer Bert Andrews on our staff. Bert insisted on composing this classic close-up of the three founders (NEC circa 1967). Left to right: Administrative Director Gerald S. Krone, Artistic Director Douglas Turner Ward, and Executive Director/Producer Robert Hooks. We wanted to create something more than just a theatre company that produced new plays, but rather a cultural institution comprised of a producing entity (presenting 4 to 5 mostly original plays per season), an acting company employing 15 top Black professional performing artists, and vibrant free training programs for actors, writers, directors, designers, and aspiring theatre administrators. With an initial three-year Ford Foundation grant of a million and a half dollars, the three of us were determined to build a new and completely autonomous theatre institution, one where we three were always in complete control of our destiny in the world of national and international theatre production and training. The immense scope and ongoing influence of the NEC can be grasped on its Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negro_Ensemble_Company). Suffice it to say there is barely any TV show, film, or major theatre production from the 1960s into the present, that does not reflect talent (in front of or behind the lights) that did not pass through or be affected by the creation of the Negro Ensemble Company.”

“It was 1965. I had just produced my first professional plays Off-Broadway, Douglas Turner Ward’s hilarious satirical double bill “Happy Ending” and “Day of Absence.” Playing to standing room only every night, and the talk of New York theatre, the New York Times asked Doug (the now “chosen” Black playwright) to write an article about Black playwrights. Instead he wrote a scorching mandate directed to the controlling White theatre establishment. The Ford Foundation then contacted US…and thus was born the groundbreaking Negro Ensemble Company!”