Black theater makers have long been a part of shaping local arts scene, but much of that work has gone undocumented.<\/p>\n
One project is working to build an archive and legacy, one photograph at a time.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, the idea came from the fact that there were so many of us doing so many interesting things,\u201d said actor and director Aaron Joshua. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t really an archive that was collecting all the plays, all the musicals, all the things that we were doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joshua noticed there was a gap when it came to Black creatives in the theater space.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen so many people for many, many years do amazing, beautiful works of theatrical art here,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd once it\u2019s been done, then that\u2019s it. There\u2019s no type of record, there\u2019s no video.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, he set out to change that \u2014 one picture at a time.<\/p>\n
For the past few years, he\u2019s kicked off Black History Month with a photoshoot, highlighting the people he says contribute so much to the local theater community, but often go unseen.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd one of the things that the photoshoot was inspired by was to give us that space to just say, you know, you just did this show, or you just did that \u2014 I saw it, and you were amazing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The shoot also magnifies the work of people behind the scenes and behind the camera lens.<\/p>\n
Willie David Short V came on board as the photographer for each shoot.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember it was the year before I actually took these pictures \u2014 we were here, and I remember sitting there and thinking, I could do that, and feeling like I wanted to be a part of this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Willie helps to mint Black work across the theater industry, all while building on his own journey.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd ever since then, I think I\u2019m at close to 150 shows where either I\u2019ve done lighting, I\u2019ve done sound or I\u2019ve helped build a set \u2014 and each one of those, I\u2019ve done photography in it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Willie adds that a network of encouragement from other Black creatives is what led him to the stage in the first place.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo yeah, my wife, Angelique Nina Powell \u2014 I\u2019ll throw a shout-out for her, she\u2019s an amazing actress, and she\u2019s the reason why I\u2019m actually here right now,\u201d he said. If not for her, I wouldn\u2019t have met all these amazing people or felt free enough to express myself in my medium.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Joshua says that\u2019s what this project is all about.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the first question I ask myself, \u2018How is this magnifying the magnificence of people that look like me? ‘\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Black theater makers have long been a part of shaping local arts scene, but much of that work…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[112374,228,226,227,189618,218742,8570,229,88,218741,21335,13309],"class_list":{"0":"post-471259","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-app-in-the-community","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-black-history-month","13":"tag-black-history-month-2026","14":"tag-community-news","15":"tag-design","16":"tag-entertainment","17":"tag-mercedes-williams","18":"tag-new-york-state","19":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}