NCAAA to Present CHRISTMAS IN BLACK: The Enduring Legacy of Langston Hughes’s BLACK NATIVITY

​Before “Black Nativity” became a beloved holiday tradition in Boston, it was a groundbreaking theatrical experiment that challenged assumptions about race, religion and who could embody one of Christianity’s most familiar stories.

On Fri., October 30, the National Center for Afro-American Artists (NCAAA) in partnership with Roxbury Community College and HowlRound Theatre Commons present “Christmas in Black: The Enduring Legacy of Langston Hughes’s ‘Black Nativity,’” a lively, free public dialogue exploring the work’s fascinating, complex origins, its evolution in Boston, and its ongoing cultural significance. The event marks the 56th annual production of the beloved, gospel-infused musical play, which runs December 4-20 at the Emerson Paramount Center (“Black Nativity” information and tickets here.)

Curated by NCAAA Executive Director Akiba Abaka, “Christmas in Black” features (below, l.-r.) Princeton University scholar Wallace Best, author of “Langston’s Salvation: American Religion and the Bard of Harlem”; Wesleyan University scholar Rashida Z. Shaw McMahon, author of “The Black Circuit: Race, Performance, and Spectatorship in Black Popular Theatre”; and Judge Milton L. Wright Jr., who has performed in “Black Nativity” for 42 years and serves as its adult choral director, narrator and a soloist. Boston Music Award winner and Emmy-nominated spoken-word artist Amanda Shea will moderate.

The discussion illuminates surprising chapters in the production’s history. When “Black Nativity” first appeared on Broadway in 1961, racial sensitivities were so fraught that producers avoided depicting the infant Jesus with an actual Black baby. Boston’s production, by contrast, has made a live baby Jesus an enduring part of its performance—a small but powerful distinction that opens larger questions about representation and the changing reception of Black art.

The Boston production also holds an unexpected connection to Hughes himself. John Andrew Ross, its first musical director here, lived with his family in Roxbury and was the son of Hughes’s college roommate; Hughes was a familiar presence in the family’s life. According to the recollections of Judge Wright, Hughes was dissatisfied with aspects of the New York production, particularly its music. Ross reworked elements of the show for Boston, bringing it closer to Hughes’s original vision.

These stories, as well as the role of educator and cultural pioneer Elma Lewis in establishing “Black Nativity” as a multigenerational community tradition, will anchor a conversation about the work’s artistic legacy and its place in Boston’s cultural life. Artistic interludes featuring children performing Hughes’s poetry, and selections by the production’s Voices of Black Persuasion choir, are interwoven with the conversation.