Behind the curtain of the Columbus Black Theater Festival

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- The Columbus Performing Arts Center is set to host the 12th annual Black Theatre Festival starting this Friday, giving actors, playwrights, and directors a chance to showcase their work.  

Julie Whitney Scott, founder and artistic director of the festival, understands the importance of highlighting work by Black artists and people of color. This festival gives them the opportunity to come together, be seen and share their passion for theatre.

 “I started the Columbus Black Theater Festival, and we started off right here in the Van Fleet Theater 12-something years ago,” Whitney Scott said. “There was really very limited space for me as an African American older woman, to get space to be hired or to even have a place to perform.”   

Actor Andrew Horton believes sharing their stories is essential and having an audience introduced to a perspective they might not have thought of before is why the Black Theatre Festival’s existence is so profound.

“There are often times when we are so underrepresented in mainstream theater, mainstream film,” Horton said, “but this gives us a chance to showcase our skills. And that's what, as Whitney Scott has done, she's done a great job of pulling together wonderful artists, wonderful African American artists and of other ethnicities to come together as a whole, to again, hone in and to help develop each other as well.”

Actress Kadence Wiles knows the value of giving children and young people a place like the theatre to express themselves.

“I feel like it's definitely important to get like that creativity in at a young age, because I started doing it when I was eight and I'm still going, still blossoming,” Wiles said. 

For more than a decade, the festival has been a place of solace for local Black actors and other performers of color. But this festival is more than that; it is a family of storytellers. 

“Theater as a community will like reel you in and it will, like, make you feel seen,” Wiles said.

It is imperative to lift up other people's stories because there is a beauty in the specific and that can show us, we are more alike than not. 

“We are a part of this country,” Whitney Scott said. “We are part of this world and I believe that stories are what bring people together.”

Performances are Friday, July 5 through Sunday, July 7. For tickets, click here.