Negro Ensemble Company

The Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) was a New York City-based theater company and workshop established in 1967 by producer-actor Robert Hooks, playwright Douglas Turner Ward, and theater manager Gerald S. Krone, with funding from the Ford Foundation. The company's focus on original works with themes based in the black experience with an international perspective created a canon of theatrical works and an audience for writers who came later, such as August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks, and others.