Conversation with Ricardo Khan

Ricardo Khan is a director, writer, educator, and Tony Award-winning Artistic Director. He cofounded the Crossroads Theatre Company, one of history’s few African American theatres to ever rise to both national and international prominence as a major professional arts institution. He was also Associate Producer for a number of Crossroads productions at the New York Public Theatre for the late Joseph Papp. In 2005, with co-producer Woodie King Jr., he presented the Broadway tribute to August Wilson in the NY theatre that now bears Mr. Wilson’s name. Khan’s major directing credits include Crossroads, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Hartford Stage, the Market Theatre in South Africa, Ford’s Theatre, the Negro Ensemble Company, Manhattan Theatre Club, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Cincinnati Playhouse, Florida Studio Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and the world famous Apollo Theatre in Harlem. As a writer, he co-wrote the NAACP award-winning FLY with Trey Ellis about the esteemed Tuskegee Airmen of World War II, Satchel Paige and the Kansas City Swing, also with Ellis, Freedom Rider, and When Day Comes, starring the internationally acclaimed singing group Sweet Honey in the Rock. Most recently, at the request of international film and theatre icon Sir John Kani, he travelled to Johannesburg to serve as director of South Africa’s first ever production of August Wilson’s Fences at the Joburg Theatre. He was also the producer of the 2016 opening night gala ceremonies for the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., and he currently serves as the show director for Sweet Honey in the Rock’s 50th anniversary tour.