Jonathan McCrory’s Road to Liberation at the National Black Theatre

The executive artistic director is working toward creating an expansive space for Black artists to live out their truths.

Image Courtesy of The Chamber Group

The term “liberation” is not used lightly with Jonathan McCrory. The executive artistic director of the National Black Theatre in Harlem wants to make freedom and opportunities a reality for Black artists, not just ideas on a back burner. McCrory didn’t always know he would work at a theater, but he was always sure he was bound to achieve it by age 40. Today, he’s forging Black artists to live out their artistic truths in the autonomous space that is National Black Theatre.

Founded in 1968 by Dr. Barbara Ann Teer, the National Black Theatre has served as an evolutionary theatre emphasizing cultural identity as a focal point for multifaceted artists. It commenced as the first revenue-generating Black art complex and is currently the longest-standing Black theatre in New York City. McCrory wants to keep it that way. As his passion, he feels it’s his duty and responsibility to preserve accessibility, justice, equity, and freedom for Black artists not just in New York City but worldwide.

“To see Black people free and liberated without the shackles of Western ideology and capitalism is a scary idea,” McCrory says. “Not to say that we’re perfect at it, but we’re stretching towards it. That means we’re the answer and the antithesis of the structure. We’re not complicit in the structure…There is also an element of our own sensibility of liberation and abundance where people may not think we need anything because we show up feeling whole and complete.”

McCrory, a Washington D.C. native, was introduced to the National Black Theatre as a Duke Ellington School of the Arts student and then New York University TISCH School of the Arts. He studied much Black history and the Black Arts Movement, changing his perspective once he moved to Harlem. When he began attending the space’s events, helping curate projects, and meeting Chief Executive Officer Sade Lythcott, McCrory realized that the National Black Theatre was all his ideas personified: a creative hub for Black artists.

“The notion of true liberation of the Black body is something that this society is so weary of saying yes to,” McCrory says. “I’ll use Beyoncé to explore this statement. Beyoncé’s economic success throughout her world tour in relationship to how that was reported versus Taylor Swift is interesting. There was very much a different language between them, and there was a silence of a Black woman’s accomplishment of her own choice, volition, and liberation. It was working up against a white dominant frame.”

McCrory’s knowledge and career extend beyond the National Black Theatre. He’s also a director, journalist, producer, and actor. He created “The Roll Call: The Roots to Strange Fruit,” which premiered on PBS and was nominated for an Emmy. He says he’s working on his sophomore film, set to be a documentary. He was also a founding member of the Movement Theatre Company. He co-founded and produced a collective called the Harlem9, curating the 48 Hours Festival in Harlem, which quickly sold out and won an Obie Award in 2014. In 2012, he wrote for the Howlround, focusing on The State of Black Theatre.

“How does one actually work from a space of being a servant and a tool in the most beautiful way possible to the manifestation of one’s dreams and completing a grace note,” he asks. “I say this so often, and I hold it to be true that my highest, best of days, I know that I’m doing the work when I am completing the unfinished sentence of my ancestors’ wildest dream. I’m working tirelessly to put the period where there wasn’t before. I’m putting the dot on the eye and crossing that T.”

A divine space is McCrory’s ultimate mission. He calls all of this “the machine,” and that part is taken care of. However, preserving that machine means building a legacy and an institution that can’t and won’t fail for Black artists. And if it does fail along the way, how can the community occupy and connect to resources? McCrory wants generations who take his place after him to be able to fail, know success is still on the horizon, and know that they can define their own paths.

McCrory says he’s noticed a demographic change in memberships and audiences: not so much less Black, but more cross-generational demographics with different backgrounds worldwide. In addition to bringing international artists to the Theatre, they hold the title to maintain the Black ethos.

Harlem is facing gentrification, and McCrory says he thinks Western capitalism is a significant factor in gentrification, inflation, and displacement in the community and nationwide. He hopes the National Black Theatre will help reattach all Black artists, practitioners, healers, and residents not to be strangers to their own design but radically pour into their own change, evolution, and truth.

“In the words of Lythcott, we will not be brand new; we will be brand true,” he says. “We will stay true to our mission and our values, uplifting our legacy every single time we can, reminding ourselves the fundamental principles that actually forged the National Black Theatre that actually came from the ethos of Dr. Barbara Ann Teer and the myriad of liberators that were the original company.”

So, is McCrory on the road to actively liberating the Black community at the National Black Theatre? How is he fighting a system that was designed to make Black people and Black artists fail? How will he break barriers and improve people’s quality of life through art? The answer is an ever-evolving “yes,” but requiring years of perpetual work, community investment, and participation.

“I want to activate the temple of liberation as this immersive storytelling piece and see what it feels like to create this womb that was created for us to imagine new spaces of becoming and new ways to interact with this built space through the zeitgeist of Black artistry, community, and ideology.”