We launched our opening season with a 3-day weekend of events, including a staged reading of Richard Wesley’s The Talented Tenth. The performances were presented over two days to sold-out (99-seat theatre) audiences. Featuring an all-star cast including Glynn Turman, Nicole Ari Parker, Bill Bellamy, Nija Okoro and Vanessa Williams. WACO Theater Center also honored Richard Wesley and Black Theater pioneer, Woodie King, Jr. with a Lifetime Achievement Award. 

The play examined such frustrations, not from the perspective of society’s bottom rung but from the lofty series of the African American elite. From this fresh vantage point, actors made a compelling statement about the guilts, doubts and compromises of those African Americans who have escaped the soul-deadening grind of economic marginalism and achieved–at least ostensibly–the American dream.