Cover Story: Building, Surviving, Thriving

Black Theatre Troupe’s David Hemphill has long been a leader of note. Now, he is taking the oldest African American theater company in the Southwest center stage for the troupe’s 55th season.

David Hemphill speaks like the actor and businessman that he is, in well-crafted passages full of rallying sentiments and emotional wisdom. Only occasionally does he pause for uncertainty. “I’m like a parent during a child’s senior year,” he said. “What’s going to happen? Are they going to continue their studies and do well?”

As executive director of Black Theatre Troupe, Hemphill is poised for the company’s 55th season. BTT, one of the oldest African American theater companies in the United States, is a beloved and important institution, now at a critical juncture. Hemphill is preparing to retire, and knows that the troupe is needed as much — maybe more — than ever. So, he is watching from the wings. “Hopefully, there won’t be any snafus,” he said. “But I am prepared.”

Hemphill is sitting at the Helen K. Mason Performing Arts Center in downtown Phoenix, named after the City of Phoenix Parks & Recreation supervisor who started it all.

BTT was founded by Helen Katherine Mason, who worked in the City’s parks and recreation department.

In the late 1960s, with racial tensions simmering, Mason, a longtime Civil Rights champion, created a program for the Black community to express itself. These small live performances, modeled on early “rap sessions,” allowed people to air grievances — but there was a twist. “You had to write a poem, do an interpretive dance, sing a song or perform a scene, not just stand up there and complain,” Hemphill said. “She made everyone that wanted to speak do it artistically. That was Helen’s vision.”

By creating a space to serve Phoenix’s African American community, Mason created something else. In 1970, she founded Black Theatre Troupe, a platform for Black voices to be heard — and souls healed. “Helen was always able to find new and exciting ways of going at bad subjects, uncomfortable things, sadness,” Hemphill said. “She was able to get to the heart of people, and get them to talk about things, and have it not be as bad.”

At the time, there was a lot to address. “There were a lot of members in the community who were losing family members because of violence and drugs,” Hemphill said.

Among BTT’s first venues was a meeting room in Eastlake Park, located near 16th and Jefferson Streets. The oldest park in the city, Eastlake Park was an important site for Phoenix’s African American community and played a critical role in the Civil Rights movement.

Though many are unaware, Phoenix, like many other U.S. cities, was redlined. Eastlake Park was the northernmost place people of color were allowed to go in the city without violating segregation laws that existed until the latter part of the 20th century.

“Eastlake is a very historic area,” Hemphill said, noting that because it was a transfer station for the trolley system, it was the one place where races could mix. Over the years, the park was the site of many notable events, including 1911’s Great Emancipation Jubilee, where Booker T. Washington gave a speech.

Today, Hemphill reflects on his time with the organization from Black Theatre Troupe’s state-of-the-art facility two blocks from the Eastlake Park community center where the troupe was born.

A Fordham University graduate, Hemphill came to Arizona with IBM in the late 1970s. “In the old days, we used to say IBM stood for, ‘I’ve Been Moved.’ They were building a plant in Tucson,” he said.

BTT conducts educational workshops, outreach programs and produces quality plays, while fostering understanding outside the Black community.

A progressive company, IBM gave employees significant time for self-development. “I looked for things to do to fulfill myself and my personal life. One of my friends in New York brought my attention to the Black Theatre Troupe in Phoenix, so I would drive to see it,” Hemphill said.

The Black Theatre Troupe was one of the only organizations in the Southwest that was part of what’s known as the Black Arts Movement, where Black artists were using music, literature, drama and the visual arts as activism for social causes. Hemphill wanted to get involved.

“I volunteered, and I would come down for shows and eventually ended up on the board,” he said.

Years later, when IBM asked Hemphill to move out of state, he declined, opting for Phoenix and a job with the Arizona Department of Revenue — which brought him closer to BTT. “I increased my activity with the theater, more volunteer work, more board work, even a little singing and dancing,” he said.

Hemphill became such a fixture that when it was time for Helen Mason to retire, she turned to him. Unfortunately, although Hemphill had both the heart and the business acumen, he was not interested in the job. “It was always my respite. It was always my soul-healing. I didn’t want it to be my business,” he said. But after reflection, he took the role in 1993.

By then, the company’s national recognition was cemented as a place that reflects the African American experience. “The thing that made the company last and gave the company such importance is that we were able to serve as a mirror and reflect the culture,” Hemphill said. “We couldn’t do the light and fluffy stuff, because of our roots in activism, but we were very important in terms of meeting our national reputation of holding a mirror up to society and saying, ‘This is wrong. This can’t be.’”

BTT has a rich heritage of providing a platform for showcasing cultural diversity through the performing arts.

That job has become especially critical in a city like Phoenix, with a relatively small African American population.

“We’re the fifth-largest city in the country, and many people move here from larger metropolitan areas,” Hemphill said. “More companies have their bases here and are bringing employees. People like to see themselves.”

Attracting new audience members is all the more important because of BTT’s historic base, which is aging. “God forgive me for saying it, but COVID affected the African American community very, very deeply. Every day, one of our senior members would die,” Hemphill said. “It was devastating. But, that’s where smart planning and funding come in.”

Thanks to grants from organizations like Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust and the Mellon Foundation, BTT is developing succession plans, alliances and programming to help transition from one generation to the next. “We need new and younger audiences, and now is the time to do it, while we still have the grandmother that says, ‘You go there.’ It is an important time, while that legacy is still around,” Hemphill said.

Luckily, that legacy runs deep. Janice Williams, the stage manager at BTT, has grown up with the organization. Her mother was one of Hemphill’s first stage managers and her grandmother was an early board member. Cloves Campbell, the owner of The Arizona Informant newspaper, was an early supporter, and all of his children have come up through the ranks. “There are families here that have been with us from the beginning,” Hemphill said.

Indeed, many actors, directors and technicians talk about BTT as their family, a place they feel at home. Many have fond memories appearing on stage as children in “Black Nativity,” BTT’s annual holiday show.

BTT’s home, the Helen K. Mason Performing Arts Center, was built to meet the specific needs of the troupe. The 145-seat theater is located at 1333 E. Washington St. in downtown Phoenix.

Beloved as it is, BTT is more than a place where African American artists and playwrights can perform and develop their work. It has become a bridge for understanding through shared experience.

BTT provides a welcoming place, where audiences from all backgrounds can see stories told through an African American lens, depicting emotions and experiences everyone can recognize. “Stories are stories,” Hemphill said. “A story about an African American family is very easily translated into a story about a non-African American family. All families in all cultures have heroes, tragedies and triumphs.”

By providing productions that illuminate the African American experience, BTT serves as a cultural bridge.

“Cultures are what’s going to keep our civilizations going,” Hemphill said. “If people can see the importance of our culture, it makes it easier for them to recognize their own importance, or recognize the importance of their neighbor’s culture.”

Indeed, in these divided days, Hemphill sees the need for Black Theatre Troupe as clearly as Helen Mason saw it nearly six decades ago. “I know that the arts are a great force within this world, but how much do you care about art if you hate your neighbor? What does it take to make you put down your shield and let the arts in?” Hemphill asked.

BTT has found the answer by looking to the past.

“We’re lucky because it has come full circle. We just have to do what we did in the 70s,” Hemphill said, referring to the active listening and open-door communication that were legacies of the Black Arts civil rights movement. “All of those things that are rooted in activism that we did as the foundation for the theater, we just have to repeat them — with louder music,” Hemphill laughed.

So, as Hemphill prepares for BTT’s new season — aka its “senior year” — his thoughts veer between business issues and social ills; fundraising duties and ordering playbills; sudden crises and the million-and-one details of theater management. In other words, he is preparing for his child to launch.

And like many transitions, this one is making him nostalgic. For Hemphill and his team, this season is all about sustainability, so BTT can remain a significant piece of the city’s cultural fabric for generations to come.

“I believe in theater,” Hemphill said. “We’ve trusted the process, and we’ve done the work, but it’s like having a child. I would like to see the theater go on for another 54 years. Will it do well? That’s what I’m looking forward to this year, just watching.”

To learn more, visit blacktheatretroupe.org.