The Marvin Gaye Story runs11 May to 29 July at the Black Ensemble Theater Cultural Center .

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The piece de resistance: the lush black-and-gold home theater with a glass-paneled strip embedded in the floor to reveal an exotic-car collection in the showroom below.

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In 2007 Gary Griffin directed a revival of "Passion" in Chicago Shakespeare Theater's 300-seat black-box performing space that made the strongest possible case for the show.

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Afterward, many of the black-tied guests headed to the David Koch Theater across Lincoln Center for a reception.

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For years, the Signature bounced around, renting space from the Public Theater downtown or holing up in a black box on Bond Street and then on far, far West 42nd Street.

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Taking their cue from a line in which one of the characters describes the Porters' one-room flat as "a very narrow strip of plain hell, " they have built a flat black wall five feet from the lip of the theater's stage, creating a claustrophobically narrow playing area in which the action takes place.

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In my experience, a theater audience that contains a significant number of black people is prone to be more vocal in its response to a show.

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We don't know about you, but we're not colorblind when it comes to our home theater gear, and we pretty much only want black, silver, or other dark colors in our equipment rack.

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They'd won an Apollo Theater talent night the previous year and were working the "chitlin circuit" of black clubs when producer Bobby Taylor urged Motown to sign the group.

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