Black on Screen: Welcome to the Drop-In Theatre

“Welcome to the Drop-In Theatre” is the first program in New York Stories on Screen, the fourth season of Black on Screen, guest-curated by Alfreda’s Cinema. This day-long program across the Schomburg Center’s Langston Hughes auditorium and American Negro Theatre captures the spirit of New York City in fragments with films by Charles Lane, Fronza Woods, Ronald Grey, Stan Lathan, among others.

This day-long program across the Schomburg Center’s Langston Hughes auditorium and American Negro Theatre captures the spirit of New York City in fragments. The featured moving-image works include snapshots of the city in motion, fleeting gestures, street observations, and experimental portraits are assembled here revealing a mosaic of Black life on screen. Moving between documentary, performance, and poetic assemblage, these films capture artists thinking through the city in real time: museums and apartments, television studios and sidewalks, private rituals and public images. Seen together—and repeated throughout the afternoon — viewers are invited to drift between stages and screens, as if wandering through the city itself. We will conclude the evening with a screening of Woodie King Jr.’s 1976 classic, The Long Night. Schedule below:

April 7, 2026

2:00PM - 4:42 American Negro Theatre – combined runtime, 54 min

Black Faces (1970) Studio Museum-NYPL, 1 min

Statues Hardly Ever Smile (1971), Stan Lathan, 19 min

Transmagnifican Dambamuality (1976, Ronald Grey 7 min)

El Baquiné De Angelitos Negros (1977. Mike Cuesta 27 min)

2:00PM - 4:44PM Langston Hughes Auditorium – combined runtime, 2hrs 44 min

A Place In Time (1977) Charles Lane, 33 min

Killing Time (1979) Fronza Woods, 10 min

unspoken conversation (1987) Iman Uqdah Hameen, 24 min

Sidewalk Stories (1989) Charles Lane, 1hr 37 min

5:00 - 6:00PM Intermission

6:00PM - 9:00PM

Evening Feature-Length Film Screening in Langston Hughes Auditorium followed by a Q&A

Runtime:

Accessibility requests can be made by e-mail [email protected].

Black on Screen: A Century of Radical Visual Culture, captures 100 years of local and transnational Black movement work and artistic evolution on film. Sourced from The Schomburg’s collection and others, it takes a kaleidoscopic look at Black life and expression across diasporas, rendering a range of storytelling traditions that incite and inspire Black world-building. The Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division (MIRS, pronounced “meers”) at the Schomburg Center collects and preserves audio and moving image (AMI) materials related to the experiences of people of African descent. The division has amassed nearly 400 collections, approximately 5,000 square feet, in a variety of formats, which captures the gestures and sounds of major historical, artistic and cultural moments and influencers. While the strength is the Black American holdings there is considerable Caribbean and African representation in the collection.

This year, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture continues celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding! Join us all year long for a wide array of special events, exhibitions, and more as we celebrate this milestone and continue the legacy of Arturo Schomburg.

Schomburg100 | Exhibition | Special-Edition Library Card | Become a Member

#SchomburgLive

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FIRST COME, FIRST SEATED Events are free and open to all, but due to space constraints registration is requested. Registered guests are given priority check-in 15 to 30 minutes before start time. After the event starts all registered seats are released regardless of registration, so we recommend that you arrive early. We generally overbook to ensure a full house.

GUESTS Please note that holding seats in the Langston Hughes Auditorium is strictly prohibited and there is no food or drinks allowed anywhere in the Schomburg Center.

ACCESSIBLILITY Accessibility requests can be made by e-mail [email protected].

E-TRANSPORTATION NYPL policy prohibits electric transportation devices (e.g., motorbikes, e-bikes, e-scooters, e-skateboards) from being brought into or stored at library sites for any length of time, as this is the best way to keep our spaces & people safe.

AUDIO/VIDEO RECORDING Programs are photographed and recorded by the Schomburg Center. Attending this event indicates your consent to being filmed/photographed and your consent to the use of your recorded image for any all purposes of the New York Public Library.

PRESS Please send all press inquiries (photo, video, interviews, audio-recording, etc) at least 24-hours before the day of the program to Leah Drayton at [email protected].

Please note that personal and professional video recordings are prohibited without expressed consent.

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Host or Publisher Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture