Samuel H. Wilson Jr., the founder and director of the Arena Players who died Sunday at age 73, came of age during the 1950s, an era when the theater held out few opportunities for African Americans. Mr. Wilson set out to change that. The result was a powerful new theater that mirrored the hopes, fears and joys of black life in America.
Today, when productions of works by African American playwrights are common and African American actors regularly perform on the city's stages, it is difficult to imagine how limited the options were for black theatergoers in 1953, the year Mr. Wilson formed the Arena Players with a group of friends one evening in his living room.
Their first production was a one-act play in the the loft of a building at Coppin State College. None of the actors was paid, and Mr. Wilson and his friends raised the money themselves to cover the cost of the sets, lighting and costumes.
From such humble beginnings, the Arena Players grew into one of Baltimore's most venerable institutions, with a six-play season, a thriving youth program and a modern, 314-seat theater in the heart of the Mount Vernon arts district. There is hardly a black writer, actor or director in Baltimore who cannot point to the Arena Players as a seminal influence. Many of the group's alumni have gone on to successful professional careers on Broadway, in the movies and on television.
Like other arts groups, the Arena Players has had to adapt to changing conditions. Its core audience is aging, and cutbacks in art and music programs in the public schools have made it more difficult to replace them with younger patrons. The company also faces stiff competition from other city theaters that produce works on African American themes and from well-publicized touring productions. Such problems are common to community theater groups across the country, though few are fortunate enough to have a home as impressive as the Arena's $1 million physical plant.
"The play's the thing," Shakespeare wrote. Mr. Wilson took the bard at his word. "You can say things in the theater that you just can't say in the movies or on TV," notes R. B. Jones, a local playwright who saw his first play at a performance by the Arena Players. "Sam was always trying to bring new people in," Mr. Jones recalled. "He got a lot of people on stage who otherwise never would have gone up there." Mr. Wilson's gifts as teacher, director and impresario helped liberate his community's minds and hearts through the magic of theater. In doing so he made Arena Players a force for change that enriched the lives of all Baltimoreans.