Interview

Character Builder: Sade Lythcott ’95

CEO of National Black Theater

Sade Lythcott’s career is quite a tapestry. Arts leader, advocate, and activist for Black arts and culture in New York and around the globe.

Obie-winning and Tony and Emmy award-nominated producer. Chair of the Coalition of Theatres of Color, founding member of New York City’s Theater and Live Performance Industry Council, and board member for other arts organizations. Former actor and fashion journalist, designer, and stylist. And, since 2008, CEO of the National Black Theatre (NBT), the country’s first revenue-generating Black arts complex and one of the longest-run theaters by a woman of color, founded by her mother, the late, legendary Dr. Barbara Ann Teer. 

The thread connecting her path and purpose as a multi-hyphenated artistic change-maker is Riverdale, as shared in these excerpts from QUAD’s conversation with the talented Lythcott. 

I WAS A DANCER WHEN I STARTED AT RIVERDALE. My brother, Michael F. Lythcott ’92, was a senior and had such a transformative experience. Our mother felt Riverdale was just a more well-rounded choice for my curiosity. Basketball, field hockey, and running track became important to me at Riverdale. My other art form, fashion, also came to major fruition. I was a trend forecaster for many designers throughout high school. 

RIVERDALE IS ITS OWN ECOSYSTEM. It’s a protective cocoon of what it means to rear young human beings while being very reflective of the world. There is a great sense of student independence and trust to author their experience with these tent poles of incredible faculty and staff who usher [students] along their way. For a young Black child in a [then] predominantly affluent white space, there were a lot of identity and cultural hurdles to navigate. Navigating them in a safe space in Riverdale’s microcosm of the diversity and complexity of New York City are life lessons that I’ve taken all the way into the boardroom. My brother and I always say that Riverdale prepared us for hard negotiations or when I’m raising $100 million to build a new, multi-use NBT arts complex with affordable artists’ housing and a community hub. [Michael Lythcott is the NBT board chair and founder of several media companies.] 

RIVERDALE WAS AN ENVIRONMENT HUNGRY TO EMBRACE OUR CULTURAL COMPETENCY AND EXCITED TO MEET US WHERE WE WERE. My mother raised us within the Black arts scene to be global citizens. Finding Riverdale with its beautiful environment and exposure to different demographics and cultural backgrounds was part of that. Now as a mom to my 8-year-old son, Thelonius, I look for academic spaces that teach him how to be a good, kind person and give him safe ways to practice navigating the world around him. I RUN NBT AND SUPPORT BLACK ARTISTS, BUT MY WORK IS CREATING A SPACE OF LIBERATION. That invitation is for everybody. I can absolutely find roots in my ambition for NBT from Riverdale’s diverse and ambitious space. Having early experiences of sharing who I am and not feeling marginalized really helped me to create a wider net for the audiences, communities, and places that NBT touches. It’s the idea of having a sense of your mission and understanding through real-time experiences that who you are as a person and your personal mission has an audience everywhere. 

RIVERDALE PREPARED ME FOR THE WORLD IN WAYS THAT I COULDN’T IMAGINE. My academic lessons have been the foundation of my leadership skills. I learned how to meet folks where they are, see the beauty in the difference, and listen more intently to the things that connect us rather than the things that divide us. It was the place where I got to really litmus test what I brought in and sharpen what I came out with. 

RIVERDALE’S SCHOOL SPIRIT WEAVES THIS CONNECTIVE THREAD OF BELONGING. The culture of spirit is how you galvanize diverse groups of people. I’m an accidental theater producer. I didn’t start producing theater until my mom passed in 2008. I was on a Zoom panel of Riverdale alumni in arts, culture, and entertainment, which included Jeffrey Richards ’65 [nine-time Tony Award-winning lead producer of Broadway plays and musicals]. We locked eyes, and the Riverdale-ness of us both producing theater left such an impression. When I co-produced Fat Ham with The Public Theater in 2023, after winning a Pulitzer Prize for drama the year before, there was this buzz around transferring it to Broadway. I had no idea what that meant at the time. I just remember Jeffrey, after that Zoom, telling me to call him if I needed anything. I invited him to come see the show, which was a big deal because he’s won a bajillion Tonys. We were the first Black theater to transfer anything to Broadway in almost 40 years. I remember leaving the experience feeling so defeated but also with a fire in my belly to change things. Jeffrey and I had lunch after that – his favorite line is to tell people we went to high school together – and he told me how committed he was to me having a different experience on Broadway. So much of what he taught me became us producing the Broadway revival of Ossie Davis’ play, Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch, which received multiple Tony nominations in 2024. For me, this was about the Riverdale School spirit transcending generations and mediums. 

FOR ME, RIVERDALE HAS BEEN A SPACE OF DEEP CONNECTION AND BELONGING THROUGH BOTH FRICTION AND FLOW. I feel forever grateful for that early experience of having a universe or an ecosystem of people who saw me for who I was, met me where I was at, and taught me how to do that for others. FAVORITE TEACHERS/EXPERIENCES: Mike Michelson, Mr. Sipp, Ms. Grovener, my art teacher Satish Joshi. The arts studio was my safe haven. All my coaches encouraged my leadership. Mr. Cohen taught Race, Class, and Ethnicity, for which I brought in my mom’s archive of the Emory Douglas first print of the Black Panther newspaper, and we looked at them as a class. For AP Art History, Ms. Stark let me lead a tour of St. John the Divine, the cathedral I was basically raised in and the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. This changed the trajectory of my life. I went to New York University and got a BA in Art History. Riverdale’s Integrated Liberal Studies is this very beautiful, fertile liberal arts foundation of culture and society. Learning in such a vigorous and inspired way gave me a curiosity in the world that continues. I learned to embrace my learning differences, not as a disability but as an opportunity to dive into non-traditional ways of absorbing information.