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Black theater festival founder dies

PFAFFTOWN, N.C., June 10 (UPI) -- Larry Hamlin, founder of the National Black Theater Festival that offered participants networking and exposure, died in his Pfafftown, N.C., home at age 58.

Hamlin, who died Wednesday of an unspecified illness, created the festival that has been called the "holy ground" of black theater, where high quality plays and culture were enjoyed by thousands, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.

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"He cared so very much about our people. He cared so very much about the state of black theater, and he did something about it," actress Ella Joyce, one of Hamlin's longtime friends, told the Times.

The festival, presented every two years, "has become an institution," said Joyce. The festival, around which Joyce said people planned their scheduled, will be July 30-Aug. 4 in Winston-Salem.

By the time Hamlin was in first grade he was infatuated with the stage after being cast by his mother in church plays and pageants.

He earned a business degree from what is now Johnson and Wales University in Providence, R.I. Upon returning to North Carolina, he started the and the North Carolina Black Repertory Company in 1979, a decade before the festival.

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