“Events like this [Young Griots] directed by Professor Hart help us fulfill our role as the center of the Black dramatic narrative. These plays demonstrate rigor, creativity, and a deep seriousness about the craft of storytelling.”
~ Dr. Khalid Y. Long, Associate Dean for Research and Creative Endeavors
I'm Denise Joy Hart.
My work sits at the intersection of theatre, experiential arts, restorative pedagogy and wellbeing.
Throughout my career as a practitioner and an academic scholar I've deepened my knowledge and experience as an educator, play development and production dramaturge, actress, director, playwright and speaker/trainer.
A few of my notable projects include: Restorative Theatre Performance Project, a collaborative theatre arts-based research initiative that employs restorative practices to build bridges between theatre, culture and science to engender social change and curator of the Howard Players Theatre History Archive 1909-2019.
I'm the founder and play deveopment dramaturg of the Play Development Lab, a play development and career incubator for Black women playwrights.
As a restorative practices facilitator I'm experienced in creating transformational trainings that support arts leaders, educators and practitioners, helping them learn from the past, create meaningful change and elevate organizational narrative and image.
Student Success, is a snapshot of how my former students are making an impact in the world and take a peek at my inspirational 20 year career producing children's musicals (TCTW) for the Washington DC community.
For fun I enjoy family history. Check out my ancestry.com commercials One and Two !
"Howard University’s impact on Black theatre."
by Sholnn Freeman (MA '12, PHD '21)
For decades before the 1920s, even at historically Black colleges and universities, theatrical training meant performing the works of European playwrights. Shakespeare, the Greeks, and other white authors of the Western canon were considered the gold standard for “serious” drama, even on campuses meant to nurture Black minds.
However, at Howard University, Alain Locke — a young philosophy professor who would later be called the “Father of the Harlem Renaissance” — and Thomas Montgomery Gregory, an English professor, envisioned a new kind of theatre. Instead of simply mirroring the white classics they had been trained in, they sought to create a stage that centered Black stories and expressed the realities and beauty of Black life. This vision set the stage for a pivotal moment in Howard’s theatre history and, by extension, Black theatre more broadly. It led to a national revolution in how Black people were presented on stage and the subject matter they addressed in their productions.
FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE
Professor Hart is thrilled to announce the first collegiate world premiere to be fostered through he Play Development Lab, her play development incubator for Black women playwrights!
Co book writers, Marjuan Canady and Christin Eve Cato, semi-finalist participants in the 2025-2027 Play Development Lab cohort will receive a collegiate world premier production at Howard University in SP2027. The new musical Tap IN, is written by Marjuan Canady and Christin Eve Cato. With Original Music by Muhsinah. With Lyrics by Muhsinah and Christin Eve Cato. Produced by Howard University Department of Theatre Arts SP2027.
Professor Hart will serve as the Musical Development Dramaturge for the production.
Co-Bookwriter / Co-Lyricist BIO
Christin is a playwright and performing artist from the Bronx. She holds an MFA in Playwriting from Indiana University and completed her BA degree at Fordham University. Cato is also a graduate of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School for Music and Art and the Performing Arts. She is affiliated with NYC theater companies, Pregones/PRTT (resident dramaturg & ensemble member), INTAR Theatre (UNIT 52 ensemble member), and the Latinx Playwrights Circle. Honoring her Puerto Rican and Jamaican roots, Cato’s artistic style is expressed through Caribbean culture and the Afro-Latinx diaspora. She has developed her work with The Classical Theatre of Harlem, Harlem9, Pregones Theater, Milagro Theatre, Borderlands Theater, Teatro Vivo, Indiana University, Texas State University, Cardinal Stage, Conch Shell Productions, KCACTF, and The Silverton Theatre Mine. Cato is also the recipient of the 2020 Greater Good Commission for Afro-Latinx writers. She is currently repped by 3 Arts Entertainment.
Co-Bookwriter / Lead Producer BIO
Named as a 2023, Woman to Watch on Broadway, Marjuan is a Tony® Nominated Broadway Producer and award-winning
Caribbean-American film and theatre artist, entrepreneur, educator, and mom to her five year old daughter. A DC native, her work spans theater, film, and children’s media. Broadway Co-Producing credits include: “Purple Rain”, “The Wiz”, “Hell’s Kitchen”, and “Death of a Salesman”. Marjuan was the 2021 inaugural Front Row Productions Fellow at Columbia University MFA Theatre Management and Producing Program. Her original work has been seen on Hoorae Media, Sensical TV, Sesame Street, at The John F. Kennedy Center, The Smithsonian, The Lincoln Center, The Folger Shakespeare Library, Harlem Stage, and The National Theatre. She is the Co-Founder, CEO and Writer of Callaloo Kids. She is the Founder of her production company Sepia Works and non-profit, Canady Foundation for the Arts. Canady is a graduate of Duke Ellington School of the Arts, and holds her BA in Theatre and African Studies from Fordham University and her MA in Arts Politics from NYU Tisch. She is an Associate Professor of Theatre and Film at Montgomery College.
I'm so proud to have submitted my recent co-authored article for peer review, "HBCU Theater Training as a Case Study for Restorative Justice, Well-Being, and Institutional Practices” for the International Journal of Restorative Justice! 🎊🎉🎊
My co-author, Kiyaana Cox Jones, is a brilliant social scientist currently with the International Institute for Restorative Practices Graduate School and I had the privilege of having her as a student in the early part of my 27 year career teaching theory, acting, and playwriting at Howard University!
My research initiative the Restorative Theatre Performance Project (RTPP), is a collaborative theatre arts-based research initiative that employs restorative practices to build bridges between theatre, culture and science to engender social change. Having the opportunity to write about the application of the research with Howard students is a highlight of my academic career!
Once published I will share the links here on my site.
Upcoming Projects...
Join me for an invigorating conversation: Restorative practices in higher education. Register HERE. It's free!
The Genealogical Saga of the Bailey Family Tree
Commissioned by the Museum of African American History in Boston, Inspired by the life and legacy of Sue Bailey Thurman, How I Met My Cousin: The genealogical saga of the Bailey family tree is an original autoethnographic docu-play written and performed by Howard University professor Denise J. Hart. The play, a powerful convergence of research, performance, and personal history, rooted in years of genealogical research, that creates a layered artistic experience moving fluidly between past and present. At its core, the project is about recovery -- of oral history, lineage, and stories too often pushed to the margins
In 2026 the piece will be presented at the Boston African American History Museum with a conversational lecture, A Blueprint for Freedom & Justice: The life and legacy of Sue Bailey Thurman, between Professor Hart and museum director Dr. Noelle Trent.
Denise J. Hart, an award winning playwright, dramaturge and director has created an incubator to help black women develop process, craft and career. Play Development Lab is an intensive development opportunity for professional black women playwrights to develop their work through one-on-one meetings, table work and rehearsals with a cast of actors and developmental readings.
Student Playwrights & Cast
Two Sides to Black written by Eeoghene Rhonor, senior Musical Theatre major & playwriting minor
Cast: Mahlet Gebreyesus, T. Lang, Niani Braxton, Kameron Outland
5 Minutes written by Essence Jackson, senior TV and Film major & playwriting minor
Cast: Cody Holmes, Skylar Wilson
Echo Chamber written by Kevoy Sommerville, junior Acting major & playwriting minor:
Cast: Mahlet Gebreyesus, T. Lang, Niani Braxton
Incline written by Joycelyn Jackson, senior TV and Film major & playwriting minor:
Cast: Cody Holmes, Skylar Wilson
Restorative Theatre Performance Project & Young Griots: New Works for the Stage
Restorative Theatre Performance Project
Founded in 2024 by Professor Denise J. Hart, a full professor in the Dept. of Theatre Arts at Howard University, the Restorative Theatre Performance Project (RTPP), is a collaborative theatre arts-based research initiative that employs restorative practices to build bridges between theatre, culture and science to engender social change.
The arts have always been used to incite change, thus, RTPP develops arts centric multi-disciplinary programming that uses restorative practices to offer the community new paradigms for ways of thinking, knowing and being.
For theatre, RTPP seeks to establish baseline standards and optimal methods for wellbeing and harm reduction in performing arts training, audition, rehearsal and performance.
Young Griots: New Works for the Stage
Young Griots, a student play development program, celebrates the powerful voices of young emerging playwrights of color who address social change through their work.
Created by Professor Denise J. Hart, to serve as the vehicle to explore and develop the theory and methodology for her research initiative, Restorative Theatre Performance Project (RTPP), Young Griots had its inaugural launch at Howard University in fall 2025.
Throughout the audition, rehearsal and performance process the restorative values for Young Griots centered the expression and implementation of: Collaboration, Respect, Inclusivity, Insight, Individual Process, Agreement, Mutual Leadership, Creativity, Curiosity, Incubation, Discovery, Trust, Conduct, De-Role, Stress Reduction, Consent and Audience inclusion.
Kudos to me! I've been elected to serve on the Association of Theatre in Higher Education Governing Council as the Vice President of conference 2027! Looking forward to seeing colleague/old friends and meeting new colleagues over the next two years!
I was honored as a finalist in the 2025 ACLS HBCU Fellowship for my "works in progress" article, Decolonizing the Curriculum Through Black Power: Howard Players Theatre History 1969-1979
