Shakespeare in Harlem premieres in Baltimore, centering Black classical performance

Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, in partnership with the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, premiered Shakespeare in Harlem on Jan. 15, a stage reimagining of Langston Hughes’ poetry by Gerrad Alex Taylor. Backed by CSC’s Black Classical Acting Ensemble, the work opened in Baltimore after an earlier debut at UMBC in October and is scheduled to play through Jan. 18.

The production frames Hughes’ poems through the conventions of classical theater while centering Black voices and performance traditions. That artistic choice positions Shakespeare in Harlem as both a cultural event and a deliberate institutional effort to broaden the definition of classical repertoire in Baltimore. By staging a local premiere of a newly reimagined work, CSC and UMBC signal a shared investment in diversifying the city’s theatrical canon and creating pathways for Black classical actors.

The partnership between a professional regional company and a public university also carries operational and policy implications. University-theater collaborations can expand rehearsal and performance resources, offer student actors and technicians hands-on opportunities, and stretch limited arts funding across institutional lines. For Baltimore City, such collaborations raise questions about how public and private dollars support representation onstage and whether arts policy priorities will follow demonstrated demand for inclusive programming.

Community engagement was central to the production’s framing. CSC’s Black Classical Acting Ensemble served as a creative engine for the adaptation and outreach, using performance as a means to connect neighborhood audiences with classical material reinterpreted through Black cultural forms. For local residents, the staging offers both access to a different kind of theatrical language and a public space to explore historical and contemporary Black experience in an artistic setting.

The local premiere also matters politically in subtler ways. Civic life in Baltimore often revolves around community institutions where conversation, education, and mobilization occur. Theater productions that intentionally foreground underrepresented voices can strengthen those civic ties by creating new gathering points and culturally resonant programming that feed into broader civic participation, from neighborhood meetings to voter engagement efforts.

Remaining performances through Jan. 18 provide an immediate opportunity for Baltimore audiences to see how Hughes’ poetry reads in a classical frame and to evaluate how the city’s arts institutions are shifting priorities. The production’s presence in Baltimore makes a case for continuing investments in university-theater partnerships and in programming that deliberately centers Black classical performance as part of the city’s cultural and civic infrastructure.