ABOUT

Our mission: The Black Arts Institute is a joint-institutional platform for The Billie Holiday Theatre and Stella Adler Studio of Acting, bringing together two institutional missions to inform a holistic vision. As a theater home to the largest black community in the nation, The Billie moves into the future with a commitment to deepen relationships with artists and audiences, engage new partnerships, and cultivate the next generation of art makers. 

Founded in 1949, the Stella Adler Studio of Acting has trained thousands of actors, many of whom have gone on to important theater and film careers. The spirit that has animated Stella Adler Studio of Acting stems from the insight that growth as an actor and growth as a human being are synonymous. These two historic cultural institutions join arms with one core mission: Through the lens of the Black Theater Canon, train theater artists in becoming vibrant and contributing members that celebrate and champion the exquisite diversity of local, national, and global arts communities in the 21st century. BAI is realized through programmatic initiatives, intensives, workshops, and reading series.

August Wilson's canon and the Black Arts Movement informs our work, as it stands as the most comprehensive and unified works to date that elevate the lives of people of African descent and symbolize that Black lives are "worthy of art". BAI has focused on socio-cultural, historical, and political eras that have informed the creative expression of people of African descent on American soil, mainly the Black Arts Movement. BAI also explores the eras of reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement, the Era of Black Lives Matter, and beyond.