03/11/2026
CAT Community Shout-out! We are sharing this event from The Apollo Theater as it honors and features some of the incredible artists who helped shape CAT's work from the 1980s to the 2010s!
https://www.apollotheater.org/event/living-legacy-gwendolen-hardwick
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The Apollo Theater will host an evening in celebration of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture’s centennial, honoring the legendary Harlem-based theaterartist and writer Gwendolen Hardwick. In the late 1970s Hardwick co-founded the Flamboyant Ladies Theater Company with writer and activist Alexis De Veaux. A dynamic performer, visionary theater maker, and devoted community organizer, Hardwick, for over four decades, has helped shape and sustain vital creative spaces for Black and q***r women writers and performers in New York.
The evening will feature scene readings and poetry drawn from Hardwick’s expansive body of work, alongside excerpts by Dominique Morisseau and Claro de los Reyes, performed by Morriseau, de los Reyes, LaVonda Elam and Nsangou Njikam -- all of whom have studied under Hardwick’s mentorship.
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Images (featuring Gwendolen's work with CAT through the years):
1-2: from The Apollo's event page
3: 2012 at the United Arab Emirates University
4: 2007-8 High School Team
5: 2000 in South Africa
6: 1998 CAT staff
7: 1994 High School Team
8: 1994 in Nigeria
9: 1989, The Way It Is, high school residencies
10: 1984-87, "I Never Told Anybody," CAT's awardwinning, touring production about domestic violence - when Gwendolen joined CAT, she began with this difficult but impactful show.
