Our Mission
The Black Theatre Troupe, Inc. has been providing training, employment and performance opportunities for multiethnic and underserved artists since 1970 and acts to make significant contributions toward fostering the arts, specifically theater, within the State of Arizona. It operates to enhance the cultural and artistic awareness of the community by providing productions that illuminate the African-American experience and culture. It is our purpose and mission to educate, enlighten, and entertain a diverse, multicultural audience by using local, regional and national talent with the emphasis on providing exposure to black culture and ideology.
About Us
Our state-of-the-art facility in downtown Phoenix’s historic Eastlake Park was completed in 2013. It provides a safe, nurturing environment for all artists with an emphasis on people of color.
BTT’s mainstage productions and educational outreach programs continue to foster understanding outside the black community and bridge divisions which have too often separated communities.
As the oldest African American theater in the entire Southwestern United States, The 2021-2022 season will mark the 51st season the company has celebrated the Black Experience.
Since our debut production of Lonnie Elder’s nationally acclaimed drama of social and political consciousness, Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, the company’s work has gained national recognition. In addition to having been invited to be featured performers at several of the National Black Theatre Festival celebrations in Winston Salem, North Carolina, they were honored by that organization in 2013 with an award for longevity as one of the longest, continuously operating Black theatre companies in the United States. The company also thrust Phoenix’s arts communities into a national spotlight by being recognized as one of the few companies in the country that has completed the performance of August Wilson’s entire 10 play Pittsburgh Cycle which chronicles Black life in America for each decade of the 20th Century.
