Telling the story of the Apollo Theater

The Apollo Theater is an iconic, legendary place in New York. Many great black artists, equivalent to Ella Fitzgerald and Stevie Wonder, began their careers in its hallowed halls.

And yet, so much for the director, Oscar and Emmy winner Roger Ross Williams“Amazingly, despite 85 years of history, knowledge and power built into these partitions, there has never been a definitive document about this famous theater.

“For me, Apollo embodies what it means to be black in America. It’s a hub, kind of a nucleus of black culture, black music, black art and 85 years of history,” Williams explained to ESSENCE in a telephone interview.

Williams felt he had no selection but to share this vital piece of Black history with others. And so the documentary premieres on HBO on November 6 at 9 p.m. EST.

It’s show time

Williams, the first black director to win an Oscar, skillfully wove the unique history of the Music Hall, with particular attention to the iconic Amateur Nights, with hope for the future and legacy of Apollo, using the stage adaptation of Ta- Nehisi Coats’s award-winning book confirms this thesis.

“Amateur Nights began in 1934 and for the first time the public had the opportunity to choose the winner. That’s saying a lot because there’s nothing better than a Harlem audience. Black audiences are responding,” Williams emphasized. “There is a call and response of the artist and the audience that is based in the Black church, so when you were an artist there, when you were at the Apollo, it felt like you were going to church.”

But the film just isn’t only about what was happening at the Apollo, but in addition about what was happening in Harlem and across the country at the time – highlighted by Billie Holiday’s mournful voice shouting “” or when James Brown loudly announced: from his “I’m Black and I’m Proud” scenes.

“Apollo is the town hall. “It is much more than a house of music and entertainment,” Williams said. “It is a home where we have expressed who we are as a people, where we are in this country, where we want to be and where we are going, and the struggles that we face.”

The stage adaptation element – ​​which featured Angela Basset, Black Thought and lots of other well-known actors and artists – underscores how much has modified since then, not only in the Black experience, but in addition in Apollo.

“Ta-Nehisi says it, and I believe it, that Apollo is the only place he could have done it [the stage adaptation of] because of history and because Apollo continues to serve black audiences,” Williams said. “Apollo continues to be a unique place where Black artists can hear from and speak to their community.”

But perhaps most of all, it showcases the unique talent of Black people to create something beautiful, even out of pain, to specific their truths in wildly creative forms, in a shocking display of defiance and resilience.

“Through the arts, we have tremendous power as Black people to speak our truth, to connect and understand each other, and to highlight the realities, good and bad, of our place in American culture,” Williams said. “We have always used art, music and comedy to talk about our reality, and the rest of the world has always stuck to it and been inspired by it. We are resilient as Black people in America, and Apollo represents that resilience in an incredibly powerful way. We must continue to demonstrate resilience because we face incredible struggles and issues in America today.”