Kamilah Forbes is an American curator, producer, and director. Forbes created and directed the Hip Hop Theater Festival from 2000-2016. She has held directing roles for television and theater productions such as Holler if Ya Hear Me, The Wiz Live!, and the 2014 revival of A Raisin in the Sun. Forbes was named executive producer for the Apollo Theater in 2016.
Early life and education
Forbes was born and raised in Chicago to Jamaican immigrant parents. She attended Howard University with the attention of attending medical school, but changed her major to theater to pursue acting. While at Howard she met Chadwick Boseman, and they collaborated on a play about their generation.
Career
In 2000, Forbes wrote and directed Rhyme Deferred, a play that used a mythic fairy tale format to explore the existential nature of hip-hop. That year, she also created the Hip HopTheater Festival in 2000 citing the need to feature work created for and by her generation. Forbes oversaw the development of the nonprofit called Hi-ARTS, which produces the festival. She left Hi-ARTS in 2016. Forbes has directed and produced several television productions that center the intersection of Black narratives and music. She produced the HBO television seriesDef Poetry Jam and Brave New Voices, PBS's The Women's List, and was associate director for NBC's The Wiz Live! Forbes became executive producer for Harlem's Apollo Theater in 2016. She stated that her goal as director would be to preserve the heritage of the Black cultural institution, and has made efforts to add a diversity of Black art to the Apollo Theater's offerings. In 2016, the Theater began hosting the New York premiere of the annual Women of the World Festival.
Theater work
In 2014, Forbes was associate director for the Broadway showHoller if Ya Hear Me and assistant director for the revival of A Raisin in the Sun. In 2019 she directed the revival of By The Way, Meet Vera Stark by Lynn Nottage for Signature Theatre. In 2020, it was announced that Forbes will direct the upcoming stage show based on Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me. Forbes is also set to direct the Broadway musical Soul Train based on the variety television series, to be released in 2021. Forbes was one of 300 signatories of a public letter directed at addressing systemic racism in American theater, along with others such as Sandra Oh, Sterling K. Brown, and Viola Davis. The letter was released in the aftermath of the George Floyd protests.
