Published20 Apr 2026
Davóne Tines leads the Philadelphia premiere of The Black Clown, May 14-17 at the Miller Theater
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MoreA music theater work exploring the experiences of Black America set to poetry by Langston Hughes
Opera Philadelphia’s 2025-2026 Season concludes in May with the company’s return to the Miller Theater for the Philadelphia Premiere of The Black Clown, based on the poetry of Langston Hughes, a defining voice in jazz poetry and a central figure during the Harlem Renaissance, running May 14-17. Co-created by music supervisor and bass-baritone Davóne Tines (performing in the title role), composer Michael Schachter, and director Zack Winokur, this music theater experience fuses vaudeville, gospel, opera, jazz, and spirituals to bring Hughes’ verse to life onstage. Deemed a 2019 NYT “Critics’ Pick,” with former productions praised as “an electrifyingly ambivalent whole” and “exquisitely layered” by The New York Times, The Black Clown animates and colors a Black man’s resilience in the face of oppression.
“You laugh / Because I’m poor and black and funny…” opens the poem and stage production of Hughes’ The Black Clown, unraveling into a reflection of the Black experience in America. Written in 1931, Hughes’ powerfully dramatic monologue is organized into two columns: the 'mood,' which highlights musical and emotional cues, and the 'poem,' the narrative core of the work. Together, these columns express a strong sense of being “Black in a white world,” with the perspective paralleling Hughes’ personal interpretation and the societal perception projected onto Black individuals.
Tines says, “Langston Hughes’ expansive and penetrating engagement with the life of the other has been a guiding salve since I was first introduced to his work in elementary school. This production provides the opportunity to harness Hughes’ words and my life experience as a Black man to claim humanity for myself, my race, and all people.”
Hughes’ message is realized by an ensemble of twelve performers, choreography by Chanel DaSilva, additional arrangements by Jaret London, scenic and costume design by Carlos Soto, lighting design by John Torres, sound design by Kai Harada, and wig and hair design by Rachel Padula-Shufelt.
With a career that spanned the Harlem Renaissance of the twenties and the Black Arts movement of the sixties, Langston Hughes was the most prolific black poet of his era. Between 1926, when he published his pioneering The Weary Blues, to 1967, the year of his death, when he published The Panther and the Lash, Hughes would write 16 books of poems, two novels, seven collections of short stories, two autobiographies, five works of nonfiction, and nine children’s books; he would edit nine anthologies of poetry, folklore, short fiction, and humor. He also translated Jacques Roumain, Nicolás Guillén, Gabriela Mistral, and Federico García Lorca, and wrote at least thirty plays. It is not surprising, then, that Hughes was known, variously, as “Shakespeare in Harlem” and as the “poet laureate of the Negro.”
The world premiere was staged by the American Repertory Theater in 2018, with its summer 2019 production at Lincoln Center hailed as “vigorous and catchy” by The Wall Street Journal and “magnificent” by The New York Times.
This production contains racial slurs and stylized representations of violence, particularly related to slavery, as well as haze, simulated smoking, and bright flashing lights. Well-prepared teenagers will appreciate the stylized movement, dynamic music, and deep engagement with American history.
The Black Clown
Philadelphia Premiere
An adaptation of the Langston Hughes poem by the same name
Co-created by Davóne Tines, Michael Schachter, Zack Winokur, and Ensemble
Original music by Michael Schachter
Music Direction by Abdul Hamid Royal
Music Supervision by Davóne Tines
Directed by Zack Winokur
Choreographed by Chanel DaSilva
Additional Arrangements by Jaret Landon and Ensemble
May 14, 15, 16, and 17, 2026
The Miller Theater
Performed in English
Approximately 70 minutes with no intermission
Produced by ArKtype
Lead sponsor: Cohen and Company
About Davóne Tines
Davóne Tines is a Grammy-nominated curator and performer known for his work in opera, art song, spirituals, gospel, and protest songs.
Lauded by The New Yorker as "a singer of immense power and fervor," Tines recently debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in John Adams's El Niño and released his first studio album, ROBESOИ, reinterpreting music by Paul Robeson. He has premiered works by Adams, Blanchard, and Aucoin, and premiered with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York, and Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Tines holds the 2025 Harvard Arts Medal and the 2024 Chanel Next Prize and was named Musical America's Vocalist of the Year (2022).
About Michael Schachter
Michael Schachter is a composer, writer, and pianist based in Burlington, VT.
His compositions have been performed at venues ranging from Lincoln Center to the Smithsonian to the Minnesota Centennial Showboat. Current projects include commissions and premieres with the Vermont Symphony, the Burlington Choral Society, the Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra, and Grammy-winning choir Conspirare. Recent projects include a concerto for pianist Aaron Diehl and the Knights in honor of the centennial of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which premiered at Carnegie Hall in October 2024, as well as commissions with the Knoxville Symphony and Violins of Hope, the MakeMusic Festival and Przekroj Foundation, and the New World Symphony with bass-baritone Davóne Tines.
About Zack Winokur
Director and Producer Zack Winokur is recognized as “the vanguard of his generation's artistic leaders” (NY Times). Recent highlights include directing The Seasons and Complications in Sue at Opera Philadelphia; The Wizard of Oz at Sphere in Las Vegas; Yo-Yo Ma: Words and Music throughout the USA; an installation created with artist Hugh Hayden and Davóne Tines at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; Only an Octave Apart at St. Ann’s Warehouse, The NY Philharmonic, and Wilton’s Music Hall in London; Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at the Santa Fe Opera; Messiaen’s Harawi with Julia Bullock, Conor Hanick, Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Winokur is Artistic Director and co-founder of AMOC* (American Modern Opera Company), a “blindingly impressive” (NYT) collective of singers, dancers, and instrumentalists. Last summer, AMOC* presented an unprecedented festival taking over the entire campus of Lincoln Center for 5 weeks with 12 new productions. He is also the first Producing Artistic Director of Little Island, leading the programming and producing of 17 world premieres and two completely sold-out summer seasons since June 2024. Winokur was born in Boston, Massachusetts and is a graduate of The Juilliard School.
About Opera Philadelphia
Opera Philadelphia is “the very model of a modern opera company” (Washington Post). Committed to developing opera for the 21st century, the company is recognized as “a hotbed of operatic innovation” (New York Times). For more information, visit operaphila.org.