CROWN HEIGHTS — A long-closed Nostrand Avenue theater is reopening this weekend with a new play after a months-long restoration, its owners said.
The Black Lady Theater, a sister site to the embattled and now demolished Slave Theater in Bedford-Stuyvesant, will open for Mother’s Day weekend with a production of “Hair’itage,” a play about black women’s hair told through six female characters.
The play from playwright Niccole Nero-Gaines will open on Friday night, followed by a matinee and evening show Saturday and another matinee Sunday, according to the theater. Performances of the play will continue each Friday night this summer, ending Sept. 1.
The theater at 750 Nostrand Ave. has been under construction since the fall by Clarence Hardy — a friend of the Slave and Black Lady theaters' former owner Judge John L. Phillips Jr. — and his son Omar. The Hardys were behind efforts to save the Slave Theater, the subject of a protracted legal battle since Phillips died in 2008.
That years-long court fight resulted most recently in a Queens lawyer hired to manage Phillips’ estate getting jail time for siphoning more than half a million dollars from the sale of the Fulton Avenue landmark. The theater site was demolished in March and will be turned into a mixed-use apartment building, according to Curbed.
The Hardys say they want to continue the legacy of Phillips at the Black Lady Theater, also known as “Slave II,” by “developing the creative process, displaying and exploring new innovative ventures and engaging diverse audiences through the multiple artistic disciplines of the African diaspora,” they said in an April 27 announcement for “Hair’itage.”
Tickets to the show are $25 per person. For more information, visit HairitageThePlay.com.
