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Theatre

1960

• There was also a burst of creativity British black theatre in the early 60s initiated by the prize-winning Moon On A Rainbow Shawl by Errol John (1957). Plays such as Wole Soyinka's The Lion and the Jewel ('62) and Jamaican Barry Reckford's Skyvers ('63) played at the Royal Court theatre.
• Wole Soyinka (originally of the Yoruba tribe, Nigeria) wins a Rockefeller bursary and returns home to study African theatre. He's commissioned to write a play, A Dance of the Forests, celebrating Nigerian independence. Soyinka is a hugely important literary figure winning the Nobel Prize in 1986. It was during the time he lived in England ('54-'60) that he wrote his first plays.

1963

• Pearl and her actor husband Edric Connor had set up an agency for black performers as early as 1956. Later named the Afro-Asian Agency (in the 70s) it was part of Pearl's campaign to gain recognition for African Caribbean arts. Another key was the Negro Theatre Workshop that they established in 1963. It was one of the UK's first black theatre companies.
• Edric Connor was himself a major actor in films and on stage and the first black actor to perform in Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon, as Gower in Pericles (1958). This year sees Errol John play Othello at Old Vic.

1965

• Cy Grant (who sang a calypso version of the news on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳) plays Othello at Phoenix Theatre in Leicester.

1966

• The Caribbean Artists Movement is founded in London. It oversees and protects the literary, academic and performance skills of Caribbean writers and artists. Andrew Salkey, Edward Kamau Brathwaite and John La Rose were the catalysts.

1969

• The Jamaican, Frank Cousins creates the Dark and Light Theatre - the first black theatre in Britain to receive government funding and have its own building. They create their own touring circuit and stage plays from America, Africa, the Caribbean and Britain including Blood Knot, The Trials of Brother Jero and The Slave.