Angela Bassett’s son is helping continue a legacy his mother started nearly five decades ago.

Slater Vance, the son of Bassett and actor Courtney B. Vance, has revived the Heritage Theater Ensemble, Yale’s first Black student theater group, which Bassett helped found in 1979 while she was a student at the university, Blex Media reports.

Bassett graduated from Yale in 1980 with a degree in African American Studies and later earned her MFA from the Yale School of Drama in 1983, according to Yale.

During her years at Yale, Black students had fewer opportunities to see themselves reflected in theater productions. The Heritage Theater Ensemble became a space where Black creatives could perform, write, collaborate, and build community together.

The group eventually went dormant during the pandemic, but Vance brought it back this August alongside co-president Chin Onwu. The two have also rebranded it as the Heritage Production Company, expanding its focus beyond theater to include film.

“She originally created this space because when she was here, there were no Black roles, even in the Geffen School of Drama,” Vance told the Yale Daily News, according to Blex Media.

Now, the new generation is building on that original mission.

The Heritage Production Company plans to produce one film and one play each semester, with its first major stage production expected in spring 2027. Nearly 70 students have already registered with the organization through Yale Connect, Blex Media reports.

For Vance, the goal is not just to revive an old student organization. It is to create more space for stories connected to the African diaspora and give Black students at Yale another place to create, collaborate, and see themselves represented in the arts.

The moment is especially full-circle considering Bassett’s own history at Yale. She has spoken publicly about the need for support and community among Black theater students during her time there, experiences that helped shape the spaces she created for others.

More than 40 years later, her son is helping make sure that space continues for another generation.

A legacy started by Angela Bassett is now being carried forward by Slater Vance, in the very place where it began.