Blueprints on Stage: Dr. Khalid Y. Long on Dramaturgy, Research, and the Future of Fine Arts at Howard

By Chad Eric Smith, Director of Marketing & Communications, Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts   

Featured Image: Khalid w/ director of Big White Fog, Ron OJ Parson. 

When Dr. Khalid Y. Long sits in a rehearsal room, he isn’t just watching lines come to life. He’s observing the interplay between text, performance, and audience—before, during, and after the curtain falls. 

“I hover,” he said. “Designers do their thing, directors eventually release it, actors have a specific journey. But as a dramaturg, I’m looking at all the elements at all times—even when the show closes, even when the audience is there.” 

Long currently serves as Associate Dean of Research and Creative Endeavors and Interim Chair of Theatre Arts at Howard University’s Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts. For him, dramaturgy is not a niche task but a practice that unites scholarship, creativity, and institutional leadership. 

Discovering Dramaturgy 

As an undergraduate at Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, Long was drawn less to performing than to analyzing plays. He peppered rehearsals with questions about characters and structure—an impulse his professors noticed long before he realized it was a form of dramaturgy. That curiosity deepened in graduate school at Miami University of Ohio, where his mentor, Dr. Paul Bryant Jackson, first named the role for him. From then on, he recognized dramaturgy as a space where “intellectual as well as creative elements of theatre” could be combined. 

Researching Big White Fog 

This fall, Long traveled back and forth to Chicago, IL, and served as dramaturg for Court Theatre’s production of Theodore Ward’s Big White Fog, a 1939 play set in South Side Chicago. His research traced the geography of Black Chicago during the Depression, digging into photographs and archives to help the cast envision a once-vibrant neighborhood at 51st and Dearborn. He also highlighted Ward’s place in the genealogy of African American drama. 

“When you look at his play, which was produced in 1939, and then at Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun in 1959, the genealogy exists,” Long explained. “ Ward was part of Chicago’s South Side Writers Group. Hansberry was inspired by the prominent group and her play is very much inspired by Big White Fog.” 

For Long, Ward’s play exemplifies theatre’s deeper purpose. “Our playwrights, specifically Black playwrights, aren’t just writing plays to entertain. These are very much blueprints of how to live in a world that doesn’t believe in your existence. They become archives into what has happened in the past that can serve as a response to what is happening now.” 

Dramaturgy as Research 

Long sees dramaturgy as a direct extension of his mission as Associate Dean. Too often, he noted, research is understood only as books and archives. In his view, the artistic process itself is a research endeavor. 

The production itself becomes the outcome of the research. The production is the book. It is the article. It is the photograph.

At CABCoFA, this philosophy elevates performance into scholarship and positions Howard as a research-centered arts institution. 

The Art of Asking Questions 

In both theatre and administration, Long embraces what he calls “dramaturgical sensibility”: an orientation toward inquiry rather than prescription. 

“It’s about posing questions rather than definitive statements,” he explained. “Asking, ‘What if? How about?’ versus, ‘We must, we should.’ That ethos opens up possibilities.” 

Just Scratching the Surface 

Despite his many accomplishments—including his recent election as president of the August Wilson Society—Long insists he is still at the beginning of his journey. 

“People think I’ve made it,” he admitted. “But I’m just scratching the surface. I haven’t even done that major project that makes me go, ‘That’s the thing. I can rest.’ I haven’t gotten there yet.” 

Until then, he celebrates each milestone with quiet satisfaction. “When I finish a project, I go have a dirty martini. I buy a coffee. I get a muffin. And I say, ‘All right, you did that. Let’s get to the next thing.’” 

At CABCoFA, Long’s dramaturgy is more than an academic specialty. It is a way of asking questions, preserving history, and shaping the future—proof that research and art are inseparable.