Thomas Montgomery Gregory (August 31, 1887 – November 21, 1971) was a dramatist, educator, social philosopher and activist, historian and a leading figure in the National Negro Theatre Movement.
Montgomery Gregory, a native of Washington, D.C., was key in cultivating and nurturing the concept of a National Negro Theatre Movement during the early decades of the 20th century against the backdrop of an 80-year-old minstrel tradition and the popularity of Black-themed dramatic works by white writers, underscored by the commercially fledgling efforts of Black playwrights in America.
Gregory was appointed the first director of the drama department and was joined in his efforts by acting coach Marie Moore Forrest, and stage designer Cleon Throckmorton of the Provincetown Players.
He articulated his "empowerment through artistic achievement" framework in "Race in Art," an article for The Citizen, a Boston-based magazine, published in 1915 by Charles F. Lane, with Gregory, George W. Ellis, and William Stanley Braithwaite serving as editorial board members.
Goaded by injustice and prejudice we have sought to offset them by disowning the race.”In March 1921, after successful runs of works by Lord Dunsany (“The Lost Silk Hat”) and Booth Tarkington (“Beauty and the Jacobean”), as well as other productions, Gregory aroused the interest of national theater critics with a performance of Eugene O’Neill's "The Emperor Jones" before a non-segregated audience at the Shubert-Belasco Theatre in Washington, D.C.
…" Although "Jones" was the product of a white playwright's vision of a tragic Black figure, Gregory saw the work as an important vehicle toward a sustained, legitimate Negro-centered theater.
"... for the histrionic ability of Charles Gilpin has been as effective as the dramatic genius of Eugene O'Neill – the serious play of Negro life broke through to public favor and critical recognition."
"[At Howard University] an attempt is being made to build a structure of native Negro drama, to be interpreted by people of that race," wrote Leonard Hall, a Washington D.C. theater critic, citing the works of then-student Helen Webb (“Genefrede”), and Howard alumna De Reath Irene Byrd Beausey (“The Yellow Tree”), as cornerstones of an emerging "native Negro drama.
Writer/choreographer Ottie Beatrice Graham, another member of the drama program and Gregory's student, wrote at least two of her one-act plays while in his class, “The King’s Carpenters” (1921),[3] which appeared in The Stylus, and “Holiday,” later published in Crisis.
The collection of twenty-two works by well-and lesser-known playwrights includes Howard drama student Thelma Myrtle Duncan's "The Death Dance" and works by Georgia Douglas Johnson, Jean Toomer, Eulalie Spence, Willis Richardson, Richard Bruce, John Matheus, Ernest H. Culbertson, Paul Green, and Eugene O'Neill, with illustrations by artist Aaron Douglas.
A second and final resignation came eleven years later, in August 1924, when Gregory opted for a position as Supervisor of Negro Schools, and later Principal, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, which offered "a broader field of service and a very considerable increase of salary.