Fans love it. Critics don’t. After Tyler Perry, can urban theater cross over? -5

Since those heady days, the crowds
have gotten smaller and so have the
profit margins, says Childs, whose
"The Neighborhood Barbershop,"
which had been scheduled to touch
down in Washington at DAR Constitution Hall last month, was
canceled at the last minute because
of lackluster ticket sales. Childs says urban theater has the
potential to grow and bridge cultural
divides. "I just want to produce
shows that are loved by everybody,"
he says. "Just like hip-hop, it's not a
black thing anymore." What does the genre look like in
2018, then? Stage plays, musicals
and comedies? Are they family
reunions or relics? The men and women in urban
theater call it "the circuit." That's
shorthand for "chitlin' circuit," the
old-school archipelago of theaters
where black artists and audiences
could enjoy one another without being bothered by Jim Crow. Today,
decades after the necessary
creation of those safe spaces,
purveyors of urban theater still
define the genre by what it once
was —Washington post