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The Arts Hour is back on Tour with three live stage shows across the USA .

Starting at New York's New World Stages, as part of the Â鶹Éç World Service Festival, Nikki Bedi and guests celebrate a new wave of diversity on Broadway and in the performing arts, as venues reopen and the city emerges from the pandemic.

Broadway is the most famous theatre street in the world. It was nicknamed 'The Great White Way’, because it was the first street in Manhattan to get lighting in 1880, but this is also a fitting metaphor for its overwhelmingly white culture. In March 2020 theatre productions were suspended as the city went into lockdown. Then in May 2020 the killing of George Floyd sparked Black Lives Matter protests across America and in response, Black and diverse theatre artists started demanding change.

When Broadway theatres re-opened late last Summer, producers had programmed ten plays and musicals by Black writers - compared with a total of just fifteen over the previous decade. Does this signal a new era of opportunities and if so, what will be the key to sustaining it?

Joining Nikki Bedi at New World Stages are:

The Artistic Director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre Robert Battle
Playwright Antoinette Chinoye Nwandu
Theatre director Rachel Chavkin
Comedian Fumi Abe
Rapper Kemba
Spiritual soul singer Duendita

And …a live audience!

Producer: Nicki Paxman

(Photo: Nikki Bedi and guests on the New World Stages stage)