Department of Theatre Arts Opens New Academic Year with a Charge to “Light the Torch”

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

Students, faculty, and staff of Howard University’s Department of Theatre Arts (DoTA) gathered in the Recital Hall of Childers Hall on Sept. 2 for the department’s Fall 2026 Launch Town Hall, opening the 2026–27 academic year with a renewed emphasis on community, opportunity, and the collective work of shaping what comes next.

Part orientation, part celebration, and part call to action, the evening brought the DoTA community together to welcome new and returning members, share priorities for the year ahead, preview the department’s upcoming production season, and strengthen the connections that sustain creative and academic life within the department.

For Chair Omiyẹmi (Artisia) Green, the gathering also offered an opportunity to build upon the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts’ 2026–27 theme, “Light the Torch,” and consider what it means not simply to inherit a flame, but to sustain it.

“When Dean Monroe charged us to ‘Light the Torch,’ I spent some time thinking about the torch itself,” Green reflected. Tracing the word to its origins, she noted that a torch was historically “a twisted bundle of materials brought together to sustain a flame.”

 

 

That image became a metaphor for the department itself: distinct artists, disciplines, experiences, and aspirations brought together around a shared purpose.

Green challenged the DoTA community with three questions: How are we bearing the torch? What are we willing to tend, and what are we willing to let burn down? And how will we know the light reached someone who wasn’t in the room to see it lit?

Those questions reflected a larger spirit running throughout the evening—one grounded in reflection, responsibility, and possibility as the department enters a new academic year and a new chapter in its continued evolution.

The town hall began by gathering the full department for a group photo before welcoming faculty, staff, and student leaders. Students were also introduced to organizations that help animate life within DoTA, including the Howard Players, D.I.V.A. Inc., and Howard Improv, underscoring the many ways students can build community, develop their artistry, and take on leadership beyond the classroom.

 

The department also offered an early look at a busy 2026–27 production calendar. The spring semester will include TAP-IN, running Feb. 25 through March 5, and SWEET, running March 19–27, followed by the Spring Dance Concert on April 8 and 9, Senior Showcase 2027 from April 15–17, and the Owen Dodson Awards on April 24.

Auditions for SWEET are scheduled for Oct. 20 and 21, while auditions for TAP-IN will take place Nov. 6 and 7. Students interested in contributing beyond the stage were also encouraged to engage with production-season support opportunities, including areas such as front of house and marketing.

Throughout the evening, area coordinators shared departmental initiatives and opportunities available to students, while faculty and staff provided updates related to facilities, operations, safety, security, and the evolving use of departmental spaces. Together, the updates positioned students not simply as recipients of information, but as active participants in the life and work of the department.

 

Community-building remained equally central to the launch. An icebreaker and drumming circle created opportunities for connection across areas and class years, reinforcing a sense that the department’s strength rests not only in individual talent but in the relationships among the people who create, learn, and work alongside one another.

The evening also foregrounded student well-being, with attention to mental health, wellness, community care, and available support resources—an acknowledgment that sustaining an artistic community requires care for the whole person as well as the work produced onstage, in rehearsal rooms, studios, and classrooms.

Taken together, the Fall 2026 DoTA Launch was less about beginning with a blank slate than about asking what the department will carry forward, what it will build anew, and how each member of the community can contribute to the year ahead.

As Chair Green reflected following the gathering, lighting the torch is only the beginning.

The deeper challenge is “the harder, holier work of keeping it lit.”