Some legacies get passed down. Others get rebuilt from the ground up by the next generation, in the same halls where it all started. That’s exactly what’s happening at Yale this fall, where Slater Vance, son of Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance, has revived the university’s first Black student theater group, originally founded by his own mother back in 1979.
Bassett, a 1980 Yale graduate who went on to earn her MFA from the Yale School of Drama in 1983, created the Heritage Theater Ensemble at a time when Black students, even within the drama school itself, had few roles available to them.
The group became a communal space for Black creatives to perform, write, and build community, and over the decades it staged productions like Filling Basins, which chronicled the 1881 Atlanta Washerwomen Strike, and Topdog/Underdog, a two-man play exploring race, justice, and masculinity. The ensemble went dormant during the pandemic, and its legacy sat unrevived until this August.
Angela Bassett's son Slater Vance has revived Yale's first Black student theater group, originally founded by his mother 🎭
— Angela Bassett Archives (@ABassettArchive) September 23, 2026
“She originally created this space because when she was here, there were no Black roles, even in the Geffen School of Drama.”
🔗 https://t.co/oFHSTjEa0K pic.twitter.com/Ra8rqCb6H8
Now a first-year student at Yale, Slater Vance decided to bring the group back to life alongside co-president Chin Onwu, rebranding it as the Heritage Production Company with an expanded mission centered on Black theater and film. “She originally created this space because when she was here, there were no Black roles, even in the Geffen School of Drama,” Vance told the Yale Daily News, referring to his mother’s experience decades earlier. He added that his mother was genuinely excited to see the ensemble come back.
Under its new leadership, the company is aiming to produce one film and one play each semester. Its first major production is already locked in for spring 2027: a staging of Six Degrees of Separation by playwright John Guare, who also graduated from Yale’s drama school. Vance said his broader goal for the company is to tell stories connected to the African diaspora and inspire a new generation of Black creatives on campus to get involved in the arts.
The response so far suggests there’s real appetite for exactly that. Nearly 70 students have already registered as members through Yale Connect.
