What is Black culture? The answer depends both on who is asking that question and who is answering. When Barbara Ann Teer founded Harlem’s National Black Theatre in 1968, she was focused on “transformational theater that helps to shift the inaccuracy around African Americans' cultural identity by telling authentic stories of Black lifestyle.” Seeing yourself can be personally empowering as well as help you stand up against oppression. Teer worked on those goals her entire life.
Teer was born in East Saint Louis, Illinois, on June 18, 1937, to Fred L. and Lila B. Teer. Both of her parents were schoolteachers and administrators; her father also worked in city government. Teer graduated high school early at the age of 15 and went to Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina, where she was confronted by a racial divide greater than that in her hometown. She transferred to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where, according to the Registrar’s Office, she earned a Bachelor of Science in physical education focused on dance, graduating with highest honors (magna cum laude) in 1957.
For two years, Teer trained in Europe and America under such chorography greats as Antoine Decroaux, Mary Wigman, and Martha Graham, whose company she toured with briefly. In 1959, Teer moved to New York City to start a career as a professional dancer and continue training. She toured with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company and Louis Johnson Dance Company. She was also part of the Pearl Bailey Las Vegas Revue. On Broadway she was among the dancers and served as dance captain for Kwamina (1961), but suffered injuries that took her off stage for years. In 1966, she originated the role of Helen in Where’s Daddy? on Broadway. Off-Broadway, she had more roles and won the 1965 Vernon Rice Award (Drama Desk Award) for Home Movies from 1964. Repeatedly, Teer found she could only find roles that didn’t truly challenge her talents as a dancer or an actor. Roles were difficult to find and keep, so she also taught at Harlem's Wadleigh Junior High School and applied her methods toward other endeavors such as the Group Theatre Workshop in 1964, which became the Negro Ensemble Company in 1967.
Teer could have stayed with the stereotypical Black roles on stage, but she grew rightly frustrated by the lack of opportunities and the messages those caricatures were sending to audiences. She knew that racism was a complex issue, but she could tackle it through drama. Most Black activist and cultural groups were headed by men, but Teer resisted that macho atmosphere and tackled a new project. She secured funding and opened Harlem’s National Black Theatre (NBT) in 1968, not only as a stage but as an artistic community that would support Black culture via stage productions, advocacy, and education. Her theater was the first black arts complex to become revenue generating, but it certainly wasn’t the last. Her success proved that audiences would pay to see the truth.
Those audiences weren’t only in New York City, nor were they only on their own stage. The company toured around the United states, the Caribbean, and even Africa. Their performances were televised on the local public television station, and they grew from there to the PBS network on “Soul!”, a variety show that ran from 1968 to 1973.
Teer did get a few movie roles, but these are also stereotypical, such as Slaves (1969) and The Angel Levine (1970). She focused on her arts center, where she could choose or create pieces that allowed for the fullness of the Black experience. A fire in the 1980s was certainly a tragedy, but it allowed the Theatre to expand into a multibuilding campus that covers the 125th to the 126th Street block at East 5th Avenue in 1983. The NBT is still in business today and has produced in total over 300 original shows over the decades, an accomplishment few other theater companies can claim.
After a couple of decades, Teer’s groundbreaking work started to be recognized by the education and arts community outside Harlem. On May 22, 1994, she received an honorary doctorate of law from the University of Rochester in New York. She received an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville at their graduation ceremony on May 6, 1995.
Teer died on July 21, 2008, about fifty years after opening the Harlem National Black Theatre. She was survived by two children from her second marriage, Michael F. Lythcott and Barbara (Sade) A. Lythcott. Her daughter is CEO of the NBT, and her son is chairman of the board of directors. You can hear Teer’s own message about the goals of the NBT on this YouTube video.