KAIN, GYLAN. A playwright, poet, actor, and musician, Kain was one of the founding members of the Last Poets. David Nelson and Felipe Luciano were the other two members of this popular group that made waves during the black arts movement. New York born and raised, Kain was a forerunner in a style of poetry that eventually evolved into what is now called rap. Kain was also director of the East Wind Cultural Center, a writer’s workshop. The zenith of their popularity came with the release of the 1971 film Right On, which was produced by Woodie King Jr. and Herb Danska. Kain wrote two plays. One is a 1968 effort titled Epitaph to a Coagulated Trinity, in which a black wino points out the absurdities of Christianity to a group of white priests and nuns waiting for a train on a subway platform. The other is a 1973 vehicle with a self-explanatory title, The Urination of Gylan Kain. As an actor, he was selected for Joseph Papp’s black and Hispanic Shakespeare company in 1977. Kain left the United States and now lives abroad.
KARAMU REPERTORY THEATRE (KRT)/COMPANY. Karamu was preceded by the Gilpin Players and the Dumas Dramatic Club (DDC) and KRT/Company of Cleveland, OH. Founded by two white Oberlin College (1915) graduates, Rowena Jelliffe and her husband Russell, the KRT gained the reputation as America’s longest-running African American integrated little theater group.
The Jelliffes had gained practical experience in theater management at the Hull House in Chicago. From, there they organized the KRT with six players. They called themselves the DDC, named after Alexandre Dumas père (1802–70), a biracial French writer. The KRT’s mission was to develop a multicultural arts center within the black community in Cleveland. It started out as a children’s theater, but as the area changed racially, so did their focus. In 1923, Charles Gilpin appeared in Cleveland as the title character in The Emperor Jones. So moved by Gilpin’s performance were the Jelliffes that they co-opted his name for their company, the Gilpin Players (1927–c. 1945). By the mid-1940s, the players began producing plays that better represented this racially diverse community. They thrived until the outbreak of World War II and then ceased to exist. While living in Cleveland, Langston Hughes, one of America’s more prolific playwrights, frequented the KRT. The Jelliffes produced several of his plays between 1915 and 1960, including Little Ham, Joy to My Soul, Front Porch, Drums of Haiti, Mulatto, Simply Heavenly, and Shakespeare in Harlem, adapted by Robert Glenn.
Other nationally acclaimed playwrights also mounted their plays at the KRT. Among them were Willis Richardson’s Compromise, Andrew Burris’s You Mus’Be Bo’n Again, Zora Neale Hurston’s Sermon in the Valley, Countee Cullen and Arna Bontemps’s St. Louis Woman, Shirley Graham DuBois’s Coal Dust, Louis Peterson’s Take a Giant Step, and Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. Also, the KRT offered plays by white playwrights that intertwined themes and subject matter relating to African Americans. They included Ridgely Torrence’s Granny Maumee, Simon the Cyrenian, and The Rider of Dreams; Paul Green’s The No ‘Count Boy and In Abraham’s Bosom; Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones; Dorothy and Dubose Heyward’s Porgy; and Carson McCullers’s The Member of the Wedding.
KEIN, SYBIL. A playwright, poet, musician, and historian, Kein was born in New Orleans. After graduating from Xavier University with a degree in instrumental music in 1958, she married and raised a family. After the marriage dissolved, she returned to school, earning an M.A. in theater arts and communication from the University of New Orleans (1972) and a Ph.D. in American ethnic literature from the University of Michigan (1975).
Kein’s playwriting efforts include Get Together (1970), which is about a gathering of invited guests, both black and white, who are subjected to stereotypical comments at a dinner party. Her other plays are Saints and Flowers (1965), Projection One (1966), The Black Box (1967), The Christmas Holly (1967), Deep River Rises (1970), The Reverend (1970), When I Grow Up (1974), Rogues althethe River Flint (1977), and River Rogues (1979).
Kein spent over two decades researching the history and culture of native Louisiana Creoles, which resulted in her seminal book The History and Legacy of Louisiana’s Free People of Color, which was published in 2000. A musician as well as a writer, Kein has written three volumes of poetry: Visions from the Rainbow, Gumbo People: Poésie de La Nouvelle-Orléans, and Delta Dance. She also wrote several essays and papers and over 28 plays (10 of which have been produced), made several recordings of music and poetry, and performed in various locations. She received honors and awards as the best playwright from Louisiana State University (1970), as well as the Avery Hopwood Award for poetry (1975); Creative Achievement Award, University of Michigan (1978); Michigan Association of Governing Boards Award (1982); and the Michigan Council of the Arts Artist Award (1981, 1990).
KELLEY, SAMUEL L. A playwright and educator, Kelley was born in Memphis, TN, and grew up in Marvell, AR. He holds degrees from Arkansas University (B.A., M.A.), Yale School of Drama (M.F.A.), and the University of Michigan (Ph.D.). In addition, he has studied screenwriting, playwriting, and film script development at New York University. His career as a playwright began when he was a student at Yale, where he penned his first script, Blue Vein Society, which eventually was produced by several theaters. He has been writing ever since, with his plays finding homes at Jomandi Productions, Karamu Repertory Theatre, Penumbra Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Billie Holiday Theatre, the Paul Robeson Performing Arts Company, and even in Wales. His most successful play has been Pill Hill, which received national acclaim by winning the Kieffer Award for best production and the Molly Kuhn Award for best play at the Yale School of Drama in 1990.
Herewith is a listing of other plays by Kelley: Skeletons; Ain’t Got No Time to Die; Driving While Black; White Chocolate; Thruway Diaries; A Hero for McBride; August Revival; Bicycle for Kim; and Faith, Hope, and Charity: The Story of Mary McLeod Bethune. Kelley’s plays are published in Dramatic Publications, Best Monologues for Male Actors, and New American Plays. His many honors and awards include the 2005 Chancellors Award for excellence in research and creativity and appointment to the Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society. He has received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant and served as the James Thurber playwright-in-residence at Ohio State University. He is a member of the Dramatists Play Service and the Black Theatre Network. Kelley is currently a professor at State University of New York in Cortland.
KELLY, NAMBI E. A budding playwright and actress, Kelly was born in New York City and reared in Chicago, where she earned a B.F.A. in playwriting from the Theatre School of DePaul University. Her acting skills landed her roles on live television, in film, and onstage. As a playwright, she wrote several plays, such as Antigone, Chris T., Girl to Be Named Later, Bus Boyz, The First Woman, The Tale of Nambi and Kintu, Milk, He She and My White Mama, and Hoochie Mama. Her works have been produced at the Steppenwolf Theatre, St. Louis Black Repertory Theatre, and Lincoln Center. Kelly is associated professionally with the Women’s Theatre Alliance, Chicago Alliance for Playwrights, Alliance for Los Angeles Playwrights, and Playwright’s Center in Minneapolis. She was a playwright-in-residence with Chicago Dramatists and Ma’at Production Association of Afrikan-Centered Theatre. Kelly was recipient of a Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fund Award and a Berkshire Theatre Festival acting scholarship.
KENNEDY, ADRIENNE. A playwright and educator, Kennedy is the “Grande Doyenne” of American theater. Born in Pittsburgh, PA, she received B.A. from Ohio State University (OSU; 1952) and an M.A. in creative writing from Columbia University (1956) as well as an honorary doctorate from OSU (2003). She also studied playwriting at the American Theatre Wing and Circle in the Square workshop with Edward Albee. She married Joseph C. Kennedy in 1953. They are the parents of two children, Adam and Joe. She has been a lecturer in playwriting at such prestigious institutions as Yale University (1972–73) on a Yale teaching fellowship.
Over a span of four decades, Kennedy has produced a variety of thought-provoking nontraditional plays that have intellectually challenged audiences from New York City to London. Her nonlinear expositions are plays that dramatize a dreamlike, surrealistic state where characters in the present, past, and historical past are juxtaposed to impart meaning. Characters are emblematic. Different personalities of characters are sometimes portrayed by a single actress. Stories are often told from different time periods by historical personages, such as Chaucer, Malcolm X, Jesus Christ, and Queen Victoria, who regularly visit contemporary settings. These plays are closely aligned with the theater of the absurd.
Kennedy has written more than 20 plays and won numerous awards, including three Obie Awards for Funnyhouse of a Negro (1963), June and Jean in Concert (1996), and Sleep Deprivation Chamber (1996). This last play was cowritten with her son Adam. Kennedy is best known for her signature work, Funnyhouse, an avant-garde play in one act. It has to do with a mulatto girl’s unsuccessful attempts to resolve the psychological conflicts of her black/white heritage. In a surrealistic rooming house, Sarah is visited by various historical figures that represent facets of her divided self. The play won the author a Stanley Award from Wagner College in Staten Island (1963) and an Obie Award (1964). It was first mounted as a workshop production for one night at the Circle in the Square in New York City (1963) under the direction of Michael Kahn. Featured in the cast were Diana Sands, Yaphet Kotto, Lynn Hamilton, and Andre Gregory. Edward Albee and others opened it off Broadway at the East End Theatre (January–February 1964) for 46 performances, also under the direction of Kahn. The cast consisted of Billie Allen as the young girl, Ruth Volner, Leonard Frey, Leslie Rivers, Cynthia Belgrave, Ellen Holly, Gus Williams, and Norman Bush. Among the places it was produced were London (1968), the University of Houston (October 1984; as a student production under the direction of Ntozake Shange), and New York University (November–December 1984; by the Undergraduate Department of Drama, under the direction of Billie Allen, with music by Carman Moore).
Other one-act avant-garde plays Kennedy penned include Rat’s Mass (1963), about a black brother and his sister, characterized as Brother and Sister Rat, who struggle to rid themselves of white-Christian oppression. It was first produced in Rome, Italy. Subsequent productions were by the Theatre Company of Boston (April 1966) and off Broadway by La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club (August 1969), with music by Lamar Alford under the direction of Cecil Taylor. The Owl Answers (1963) illuminates a mulatto girl’s search for her identity. It received the Stanley Award (1963) and was produced at several locations, the White Barn Theatre in Westport, CT (1965); off Broadway at the New York Shakespeare Festival (NYSF); and the New Federal Theatre (4 January–March 1969) for 67 performances on a double bill with A Beast’s Story (1965), under the direction of Gerald Freedman. The cast included Joan Harris, Cynthia Belgrave, Moses Gunn, and Henry Baker. A Lesson in Dead Language (1964) depicts a white dog that attempts to teach a class of adolescent girls but fails to communicate. It was produced in London (1968) and in New York City at St. Mark’s Church (April 1971). A Beast’s Story (1965) is a symbolic play about the sexual fears of a black woman. It was first produced in New York City (1965) and then off Broadway by the NYSF/Public Theatre (4 January–March 1969) for 67 performances on double bill with The Owl Answers, under the direction of Freedman. The cast was comprised of Amanda Ambrose, Moses Gunn, Cynthia Belgrave, and Tony Thomas.
Kennedy’s representative full-length adaptations include The Lennon Play: In His Own Write (sometimes listed as The Lennon Play, 1967), an adaptation by Kennedy and Victor Spinette from John Lennon’s stories and poems dealing with the rite of passage. It was first produced in London by the National Theatre Company (1967); subsequently at the Summer Theatre Festival in Kingston, RI (August 1968); and at the Arena Summer Theatre at State University of New York at Albany (August 1969).
Kennedy also wrote avant-garde monologues in one act. Sun: A Poem for Malcolm X Inspired by His Murder (1969) is about the scattering of a man’s atoms into the cosmos after his body has been shattered into fragments. It was produced in London’s West End at the Royal Court Theatre (August 1969). An Evening with Dead Essex (1973) is a one-act document paying tribute to Mark Essex, a youth shot by police in New Orleans. It was produced off Broadway at the American Place Theatre (November 1973) and at the Yale Repertory Company in New Haven, CT (1974). A Rat’s Mass/Procession in Shout (1976) is a full-length improvisational jazz opera in one act. Cecil Taylor adapted and staged it from Kennedy’s A Rat’s Mass. La MaMa produced it in New York (March 1976). A Movie Star Has to Star in Black and White (1976) is a full-length work produced off-off-Broadway as an experimental workshop production by the NYSF/Public Theatre (November 1976). Joseph Chaikin directed the production at the University of Houston in Texas (February 1985) under the direction of Ntozake Shange. A Lancashire Lad (1980) is a children’s musical. It is a fictionalized version of the boyhood of Charlie Chaplin. Other plays Kennedy authored are The Ohio State Murders, She Talks to Beethoven, The Dramatic Circle, Orestes and Electra, A Lesson in Dead Language, and Oedipus Rex 2001. In 1995, Joseph Papp and the Signature Theatre Company acknowledged Kennedy as a major American playwright by presenting a prospective of seven of her plays at the NYSF/Public Theatre. The critics agreed and rewarded the productions with praise.
Kennedy has spent her career teaching at various educational institutions, including Yale, Harvard, the University of California, Princeton, Brown, and OSU, her alma mater. In 2003, the 50th anniversary of her graduation from that institution, OSU presented her with an honorary doctorate of literature. She also cofounded the Women’s Theatre Council. In addition to her plays, Kennedy’s prose offerings include a memoir, People Who Led to My Plays, and a novel, Deadly Triplets. Over a lengthy career, Kennedy has accumulated many awards and honors. They include a Guggenheim fellowship, two Rockefeller playwriting grants, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, Creative Artist Public Service grant, Stanley Award for writing, Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Award, and the Pierre Lecomte du Novy Award. She was named the chancellor’s distinguished lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley (1980 and 1986). In addition, in 2003, she was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards Jury.
KENNEDY, SCOTT J. A playwright, director, composer, actor, and company manager, Kennedy was born in Knoxville, TN. He is the recipient of a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from New York University. He studied in Paris; London; and Heidelberg, Germany, and attended professional schools of theater and acting. He was a professor of theater arts at the School of Performing Arts in Brooklyn College, City University of New York. Kennedy married Janie Sykes Kennedy, an actress and educator. They have three children. He was a university teacher and professor for more than 25 years and founder/director of a number of university, community, and professional theater groups. As a performer, he has appeared in films and onstage, radio, and television in the United States and abroad and is also an actor-director and Africanist.
His playwriting credits include Ham’s Children (1962), a three-act drama with music on the civil rights struggle set in a church and a jail in the Deep South. The African Theatre and the Related Arts (ATRA) produced it in New York City (1962). Dramatic Voices of Protest (1964) is a theatrical collage utilizing music, poetry, narration, and drama to present various figures of history who represent the “Voices of Freedom.” ATRA produced it (1964). Commitment to a Dream (1965) is a historical drama with music and dance. Historical black heroes who fought for the cause of freedom are resurrected by a high priestess from Ghana in order to inspire a group of players who are rehearsing a play about freedom. Among the figures invoked are Cinque, Nat Turner, and Frederick Douglass. ATRA produced it (1965).
Kennedy’s other representative plays include Threshold of the Dawn (1965); Negritude: A Speak Out on Color (1965); Beyond the Veil (1965); Behind the Mask (1965); Cries from the Ghetto (1966); The Poetic Life of Langston Hughes (1957), cowritten with his wife, Janie Kennedy; They Sang of a Nation (1968); The Rivers of the Black Man (1969), cowritten with his wife, Janie Kennedy; The Spirit That Creates (1970); The King Is Dead (1971); and Cries! How African! (1973).
KHAN, RICARDO. An artistic director and graduate of Rutgers University, Khan was cofounder with L. Kenneth Richardson of Crossroads Theatre Company in Brunswick, NJ, in 1977—a theater with a checkered history. It was the first African American theater to become a member of the League of Resident Theatres and the first to receive a Tony Award (1999) for outstanding regional theater. Conversely, it has been forced to close its doors twice because of financial problems but continues to function as of this writing. During his tenure, Khan initiated a New Playwrights Program, which has attracted the likes of such writers as Emily Mann, Leslie Lee, Denise Nicholas, and George C. Wolfe. He hired Sydne’ Mahone as director of play development, and the result was a more balanced exposure for female playwrights. Under Khan’s direction, Crossroads produced a variety of plays that brought the theater national acclaim. Among them were The Screened-In Porch by Marian X, Jitney by August Wilson, The Darker Face of the Earth by Rita Dove, The Colored Museum by George C. Wolfe, Two Hah Hahs and a Homeboy by Ruby Dee, The Love Space Demands by Ntozake Shange, and Black Eagles by Leslie Lee. Khan was president of the Theatre Communications Group’s board of directors from 1995 to 1998. He took a leave of absence from Crossroads in 1999.
KILLENS, JOHN OLIVER (1916–87). A native of Macon, GA; playwright; novelist; and essayist, Killens was often considered one of the finest writers to grace American soil and a seminal figure in the world of black arts and letters. Over a lifetime, he has written some 10 plays, of which 1 remains unpublished; 2 screenplays; and hundreds of short stories, essays, and opinion pieces that have appeared in numerous publications. Killens aspired to be a lawyer, but education was a struggle for him financially. After attending two other colleges, he finally obtained his baccalaureate through evening classes at Howard University. After serving 41 months in the U.S. Navy in World War II, he returned to the United States and decided to become a writer, taking writing courses at Columbia University while working full time at the National Labor Relations Board.
In the early 1950s, Killens, Rosa Guy, and John Henrik Clarke founded the Harlem Writers Guild, a group that would eventually include Maya Angelou, Ossie Davis, Lonnie Elder III, Paule Marshall, and Audrey Lorde. That led to the writing of his first novel, Youngblood (1954), the story of a southern family dealing with racism and Jim Crow laws in the early 20th century. His two biggest successes were And Then We Heard the Thunder (1962) and The Cotillion; or, One Good Bull Is Half the Herd (1971). Cotillion was so successful that Killens adapted it into a play. Woodie King Jr. produced it at the New Federal Theatre (1975) under the direction of Allie Woods Jr. Cotillion is a hilarious, satirical look at the cultural politics of the 1960s and 1970s between militants, social climbers, and the black middle class on the occasion of a cotillion. Other plays Killens wrote include Ballad of the Winter Soldiers, coauthored with Loften Mitchell, and Lower than the Eagles. Killens was a writer-in-residence at Fisk University, Howard University, Bronx Community College, Medgar Evers College at City College of New York, and Columbia University. Over the years, his students included Terry McMillan, Arthur Flowers, Bebe Moore Campbell, and Nikki Giovanni. Killens received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in 1980 and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 1986.
KILONFE, OBA. See PENNY, ROBERT LEE (OBA KILONFE).
KIMBALL, KATHLEEN. A playwright Kimball, was based in New York City, where she was associated with Theatre Genesis, the Afro-American Studio for Acting and Speech (AASAS), and the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theatre during the 1970s. One of her representative plays is Meat Rack (1972), a comic fantasy about the mental wanderings and dreams of a black prostitute who wants to quit her profession. Her fantasies concern what she might otherwise have become. The AASAS produced it (January 1975). Jimtown (1972), another representative play, was produced by Theatre Genesis (April 1972).
KING, WOODIE, JR. A theater pioneer, King is a director, actor, playwright, screenwriter, television scriptwriter, essayist, short-story writer, and consultant. Hailed as the “Renaissance Man of Black Theatre,” he was the most successful and prolific black producer in the world. For over 35 years, as founding director of the seminal New Federal Theatre (NFT), King produced nearly 200 theater productions; over 5,000 performances; and a showcase for over 1,000 actors, directors, and designers. A Detroit native, King received his theatrical training at Cass Technical High School in Detroit (mid-1960s); Will-O-Way School of Theatre, Bloomfield Hills, MI (1958–62); Wayne State University; and the Detroit School of Arts and Crafts. He also studied drama with Lloyd Richards under a John Hay Whitney fellowship (1965).
As cofounder of the Concept East Theatre in Detroit with Ronald Milner in 1960, King held the position of manager and artistic director. He directed several plays by some of the leading black writers, such as Milner and Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), and by white playwrights, such as Edward Albee. While touring a production of A Study in Color (1964) that played in New York City at the newly formed American Place Theatre, King was asked to stay and direct five plays as works-in-progress. He soon attracted the attention of the Harlem Youth Opportunity Unlimited/American Community Theatre (Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited, Inc., Associated Community Teams), which asked King to write a proposal for a cultural arts program. The group was awarded a budget of $225,000 to start a theater program. King was hired as cultural arts director of Mobilization for Youth (MFY) to teach dance, arts, and theater. From 1965 to 1970, he produced and directed a number of plays and award-winning short films and was also involved in several other projects. King is also the author of two plays, Simple Blues, an adaptation of work by Langston Hughes (1957), and the Weary Blues (1966), also adapted from Hughes.
After the demise of the MFY in 1970, King conceived the idea of the NFT (named after the Hallie Flannigan Federal Theatre of the Federal Theatre Project) at the Henry Street Settlement in New York City. This location on the Lower East Side has housed a combination of black, Jewish, Asian, and Latino theaters. Since its doors opened, King’s creative endeavors have produced a legacy of theatrical excellence. King is the recipient of an array of theater honors and awards. Among them are the John Hay Whitney fellowship (for directing 1965, 1966) and several Audience Development Committee Awards and National Black Theatre Festival awards. King’s alma mater, Wayne State University, awarded him an honorary doctorate in humanities (2000). In 2005, King was honored along with Douglas Turner Ward as a theater pioneer at Town Hall on 13 February 2005.
KISSOON, FREDDIE. Kissoon is an Afro-Caribbean playwright who has often been described as a “leading light” in Caribbean theater. He was born in St. James, Trinidad, the last of seven children, but subsequently moved to the United States. Kissoon has always had a keen interest in drama. As a young man, he joined the Nelsonian Cultural Club, a community group based in the area where he lived. In 1957, he founded the legendary Strolling Players, a dramatic group that is still performing and one that enjoys the status of Trinidad’s longest-operating dramatic group. To date, Kissoon has written over 70 plays and has directed almost twice as many. Most of his plays have been self-published. These include Common Entrance; God and Uriah Butler; He Died for Us; Doo-Doo; Do Your Homelessons, Daddy; A Promise for Christmas; Fugitive from the Royal Gaol; King Cobo; Girls Wanted; The Miracle Man; Like Hog Love Mud; Pahyol; and Papa Look de Priest Passing. Mamaguy and Zingay were published by the Extra-Mural Department of the University of the West Indies in 1966. Calabash Alley (1970) was written as a radio play, but because of its overwhelming popularity, it was scripted into a stageplay and self-published in 1973. It was a success on the local and regional theater circuit and became a television series, with Kisson writing new episodes for this sitcom. Kissoon was one of the first to do a book-length study on West Indian creative drama. He also wrote the script for Trinidad and Tobago’s first full-length movie, The Right and the Wrong, and is involved in the production and presentation of an annual Lenten play, We Crucify Him.
KRIGWA PLAYERS, KRIGWA LITTLE THEATRE, KRIGWA LITTLE NEGRO THEATRE MOVEMENT. This landmark theater group, theater, and movement, was active between 1925 and the early 1930s. Krigwa Theatre was formed by the erudite Dr. W. E. B. DuBois, editor of Crisis magazine, an organ of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. KRIGWA was an acronym for Crisis Guild of Writers and Artists, CRIGWA, which changed to KRIGWA, to the Krigwa Players, and to the Krigwa Little Negro Theatre Movement, a name that was gaining popularity around the country. It was at Krigwa that DuBois first articulated his now seminal declaration for African American theater: that it should be by, about, for, and near the black community. DuBois wanted to use drama as a vehicle to support cultural uplift of his people and to encourage the writing and production of plays for racial propaganda. To this end, DuBois established the Crisis literary contest (1925–27) and the Crisis Guild of Writers and Artists, comprised of the prize-winning writers of the Crisis contest. It presented annual awards for the best original literary and dramatic works.
The renamed players (Krigwa Little Theatre) was housed for three years (1925–27) at the Harlem Library Little Theatre in the basement of the 135th Street Branch of the New York Public Library, the first drama group to make its home there. It was comprised of approximately 30 members. Other branches were established in Washington, DC; Cleveland, OH; New Haven, CT; Baltimore, MD; and other cities in the East and West. With DuBois as the driving force and Charles Burroughs the artistic director of Krigwa Players, the group’s first show, Burroughs’s Black Man: A Fantasy (1925), was given at the Harlem Library Little Theatre. It was a pageant-masque that focused on the future development of black theater—the development of drama, art, music, and literature in America. Soon thereafter, the Krigwa Little Theatre mounted several programs (1926–27), producing many of the prize-winning plays from the Crisis contest. These included Willis Richardson’s The Broken Banjo and Compromise, Georgia Douglas Johnson’s Blue Blood, and Eulalie Spence’s Foreign Mail Here and The Fool’s Errand. Spence’s latter play, Errand, was presented in the National Little Theatre Tournament at the Frolic Theatre in New York City (May 1927). It was awarded the Samuel French prize of $200 as the best unpublished play, but Spence did not receive her prize money. In an uncharacteristic move, DuBois kept it to pay for production expenses. His action displeased Spence and other members of the ensemble, causing the demise of the Krigwa Players (September 1927) at the New York branch. However, branches in other cities continued to operate, and many remained active into the early 1930s. The second most active branch of Krigwa was in Washington, DC. It produced several plays by Richardson, such as his Mortgaged, The Chasm, Flight of the Natives, and The Peacock’s Feather, as well as Spence’s The Hunch and Lewis M. Alexander’s Pierrot at Sea. The Baltimore branch produced May Miller’s Riding the Goat. Although the different groups of Krigwa Players throughout the country were short lived, the group helped to stimulate the formation and activity of many other little theater groups in New York City and elsewhere in the nation.
KUNTU REPERTORY THEATRE (KRT). Associate Professor Vernell A. Lillie founded the KRT in 1974 as an adjunct to the African Studies Department at the University of Pennsylvania. Kuntu is a Bantu word meaning “the way.” The purpose was to provide opportunity for the presentation of plays by Associate Professor and Playwright-in-Residence Rob Penny, August Wilson, and other aspiring African American playwrights. The mission has been to examine African American life in all its nuances and to entertain, enlighten, and educate the audience to social action. To this end, the KRT has developed a three-pronged approach: to train students in all areas of the theater; to produce four main-stage productions each year; and to develop a producing touring unit that performs at schools, universities, community organizations, social service agencies, and state and federal prisons.
The KRT has been very successful in all three areas, credited with over 80 productions since its inception and producing the works of Wole Soyinka, OyamO, Kathleen Collins Prettyman, James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, and Marta Effinger. Other productions include The Meeting by Jeff Stetson, Seven Guitars by August Wilson, Little Willie Armstrong Jones by Rob Penny, and Keepers of the Dream: A Celebration of Significant Sistahs! by Jacqueline Moscou. Lillie, also a playwright and the head of the Theatre Department, has produced and directed her own plays. Each year, 10 to 20 plays are sent on the touring circuit to practically every venue in the state and throughout the world, appearing in New York City, New Orleans, and Toronto and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. The KRT has also developed special interactive programs for senior citizens that are a yearly occurrence. Over 15 residency workshops are held each year in Pittsburgh public schools, involving students, teachers, parents, and theater professionals, all coordinated by Artistic Director Lillie. The programs focus on music, dance, and theater as psychodrama, culminating in a performance. The KRT has been a true pioneer in exposing and developing new playwrights and their plays for over 30 years. Penny, who chaired the African Studies Department from 1978 to 1984, passed away in 2003. Lillie succeeded Penny as department chair. She held this position until she retired at the end of the 2006–7 academic year.