Black Nativity plays at Paramount Center

Black Nativity promotional poster

Emerson College will host the 44th season of Langston Hughes’s Black Nativity next month.

Produced by the National Center of Afro-American Artists (NCAAA), Boston’s production of the Black Nativity is the longest-running performance of Hughes’s gospel play, which includes music and dance.

One of the City’s favorite holiday traditions, this year’s run will consist of 12 performances from December 5 through December 21 at Emerson’s Paramount Mainstage. Tickets are $45, $36, and $32, and can be purchased online at www.paramountboston.org.

The NCAAA recognizes that the more than four decades of presenting Black Nativity honors the conviction of NCAAA founder and Emerson alumna Elma Lewis ’43 and the production’s original musical director, John Andrew Ross: that spiritual and humane values have to be celebrated to build wholesome communities.

The College’s Elma Lewis Center for Civic Engagement, Learning, and Research was established in 2013 in honor of Lewis, a nationally recognized arts educator and advocate.

“We’re thrilled to host this wonderful holiday tradition and historic production on our campus. It reaffirms the important role that the arts have in bringing communities together and creating shared experiences,” said Emerson College President Lee Pelton.