Events

Set on a Caribbean island, this Tony award-winning musical moved and exhilarated patrons, as the story of a peasant girl searching for love and her place in the world unfolded. This sweeping production is based on the novel "My Love, My Love" by Rosa Guy and showcases Caribbean rhythms and instruments as it deals with complicated social issues of race, class and affairs of the heart. Once On This Island was presented October 11 - November 19, 2023.

This Pulitzer Prize-winning drama is set in the segregation-era South of 1944. On a Louisiana Army base, two shots ring out. A Black sergeant is murdered. A series of interrogations triggers a gripping barrage of questions about sacrifice, service, and identity in America. One persistent investigator must race against his white leadership to unravel the crime before they unravel him. Audiences were on the edge of their seats when A Soldier’s Play ran January 18 - February 18, 2024.

WBTT presented a short-run, June 12 – 23, 2024, of Melda Beaty’s Coconut Cake in conjunction with four other theatre companies as part of the show’s rolling world premiere. This play was the winner of the Sylvia Sprinkle-Hamlin Rolling World Premiere Award at the 2022 National Black Theatre Festival. The comedy tells the story of four retirees who spend their days debating the mysteries of life over coffee and games of chess at a local McDonald’s. But when a mysterious woman moves to town, tempting Eddie Lee and his chess buddies to indulge in her melt-in-your-mouth coconut cake and medicine cabinet secrets, their lives are changed forever. The show starred K. Sidney Brunson, Lawrence Evans, Lee Palmer, David Sitler, and Jacob Smith. A special performance was held during WBTT’s annual Juneteenth Arts Festival free to the community.

In our 2021-2022 season we premiered our newest “Christmas card to the community,” which joins A Motown Christmas and Black Nativity in our annual rotation of holiday shows. Joyful! Joyful! includes music from groups like Earth, Wind & Fire, The Staple Singers and Stevie Wonder, as well as new versions of holiday classics that are part of the holiday traditions many of us share. For people of all faiths and even for non-believers, the songs and the show carry universal messages of hope, peace, love and childlike wonder.

Sheldon Rhoden, one of Sarasota’s favorite WBTT troupe members, is reprising the role of Marvin Gaye in a new version of the show Marvin Gaye: Prince of Soul. This not-to-be-missed original show begins in the 1950s at the start of Gaye’s career with Motown and follows its twists and turns until his untimely death in the mid-80s. A gifted, innovative and enduring talent, Gaye blazed the trail for the continued evolution of popular black music from the powerful R&B to sophisticated soul to an intensely political and personal form of artistic self-expression. Come see why Rolling Stone declared Gaye one of America’s greatest entertainers. And, why Sheldon receives great accolades whenever he sings one of Marvin’s songs. People say he seems to channel the amazing singer.