– W –

WALCOTT, DEREK. A playwright and poet, Walcott was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1992. He is a world-class wordsmith whose plays, poetry, and prose have elevated him to the status of nonpareil in the world of arts and letters. He was born on the West Indian island of St. Lucia. He began writing around the time he attended college, graduating from the University of West Indies in 1957. Walcott has taught creative writing at Harvard, Rutgers, and Yale Universities. He presently teaches at Boston University.

During a lengthy career, Walcott has written over 17 volumes of poetry and over 30 plays. He founded the acclaimed Trinidad Theatre Workshop in 1959, a vehicle he used to develop the many plays he wrote. Among them are Ti Jean and His Brothers (1958), a West Indian folktale about three brothers; Pantomime (1978), a satire of colonial relationships using the metaphor of Robinson Crusoe; and Dream on Monkey Mountain (1967), a tale about Makak, a charcoal burner in search of his identity and heritage. Dream, his most well-known play, debuted at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles with a cast that included Ron O’Neal and Jason Bernard. Later, in 1971, Bernard directed the play in an acclaimed production at Black Arts/West in Seattle with a cast that included Alexander Conley III, Robert Livingston, and Charles Canada. The prestigious Negro Ensemble Company also produced the play in 1971 with the famed Roscoe Lee Browne in the role of Makak and O’Neal reprising his role as Corporal Lestrade. Walcott’s published poetry includes Selected Poems (1964), The Gulf (1969), Another Life (1973), The Fortunate Traveler (1981), The Bounty (1997), and The Prodigal (2005). Among his awards, Walcott is the recipient of a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation, a Royal Society of Literature Award, the Queen’s Medal for poetry, and a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award. He is also an honorary member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

WALKER, CELESTE BEDFORD. Walker is a veteran writer out of Houston, TX. She is resident playwright at the Ensemble Theatre Company of Houston that was founded by the late George Hawkins in 1976. Walker has written many plays over the years but is best known for Camp Logan, a play based on the tragic events of the all-black 24th Infantry in World War I, of which 13 infantrymen ended up being hanged. The play premiered at the Billie Holiday Theatre in 1963 and continues to play at other venues around the country to this day. Other plays written by Walker include Over Forty, a musical comedy featuring four women over 40; Distant Voices, a theatrical collage with music about preserving African American culture; Freedom Train, a children’s play about the underground railway in Texas; and Profiles in Black, a children’s play about hidden African American history. Other plays include Rep Day, Harlem after Hours (cowritten with Audrey H. Lawson), Reunion in Bartersville, and Fabulous African Fables (a children’s play). Walker was the recipient of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Image Award and the Kennedy Center Award.

WALKER, EVAN K. (1937–82). Walker was one of a host of authors who emerged—seemingly out of nowhere—to become one of the cutting-edge playwrights during the black arts movement that began in the 1960s. He was a native Georgian but lived in New York City and Washington, DC, where at least two of his plays were produced at the DC Black Repertory Theatre (DCBRT). Other productions of his plays were also mounted at the Freedom Theatre (FT) in Philadelphia, the Free Southern Theatre (FST) in New Orleans, and Vantile Whitfield’s (see MOTOJICHO [VANTILE EMMANUAL WHITFIELD, 1930–2005]) Performing Arts Society in Los Angeles (PASLA). His plays include The Message (1960), a satirical comedy in one act about the desire of middle-class blacks to integrate into American society. It was produced by PASLA (1960) and the DCBRT (1973). East of Jordan (1969) is a drama in two acts about a black mother in Harlem who suppressed family secrets from the past. The FT (1969) produced it, as did the FST during the same year. Coda (also known as Coda for the Blues, late 1969) is a drama in three acts set in the late 1960s. A black military man returns home to a family wrestling with white oppression during the civil rights movement. The DCBRT opened it at the Last Colony Theatre in Washington, DC (December 1972) for 20 performances. A War for Brutus (1950) is a drama in three acts about a young black paratrooper’s induction into a segregated airborne infantry regiment shortly before the outbreak of the Korean War. Walker received the Conrad Kent Rivers Award for a short story in 1970.

WALKER, JOSEPH A. (1936–2003). Walker, a playwright, actor, director, and educator, was honored with the Drama Desk Award as the most promising playwright of the 1972–73 season for The River Niger (1972). He was born in Washington, DC, and earned a B.A. in philosophy and drama at Howard University in 1956, where he was active with the Howard Players. He also earned his M.F.A. (1970) and Ph.D. in the Department of Cinema (1970) at Catholic University. Walker has taught in the public schools of Washington, DC, and the City College of New York and was full professor of drama at Howard University, as well as playwright-in-residence at Yale University (1970–71). Walker has performed onstage, in television, and in films. He cofounded with his wife Dorothy Dinroe (Walker) the Demi-Gods, a professional music-dance repertory company. There he served as artistic director, with his wife as musical director.

In 1969, Walker formed an alliance with the Negro Ensemble Company (NEC). It produced four of his plays off Broadway at St. Marks Playhouse (December 1969–February 1970) for 56 performances, with music by Dorothy Dinroe under the direction of Israel Hicks. Those plays include Tribal Harangue One (1969), a vignette in one act set in a slave dungeon off the coast of West Africa during the 14th or 15th century. An African couple takes the life of their only son to spare him from a life in slavery. Tribal Harangue Two (1969) is a drama in one act set in Texas. Two lovers, a black man and white woman, conspire to kill her rich stepfather and use his money to aid a black revolutionary. Among the cast members were Robert Hooks, David Downing, William Jay, Julius W. Harris, and Douglas Turner Ward. Tribal Harangue Three (1969) is a vignette in one act set in the future following the black revolution. The father, a leader in the revolution in Tribal Harangue One, tries to protect his son from the racial confrontation even though it may cost the father his life. Harangue (1969) is a drama in one act set in a Lower East Side bar in New York City. A deranged African American man, believing he is producing a television show, holds the patrons at gunpoint and forces them to reveal whether or not they are virtuous. The cast included Julius W. Harris, William Jay, Linda Carlson, and Douglas Turner Ward. Niger garnered Walker the most accolades as a playwright. Set in Harlem, it is a three-act drama about the black experience. Walker’s other plays include The Believers: The Black Experience in Song (1968); Out of the Ashes: A Minstrel Show (1974); Antigone Africanus (1975), an African adaptation of Sophocles’ Antigone; and District Line (1984), a full-length dramedy. Walker was the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship to study creative writing for the theater (c. 1974–75).

WALKER, LUCY M. (MARGARET). Walker is a director, playwright, and freelance journalist. She attended elementary school in her hometown of Memphis, TN, and completed her secondary and high school education in Denver, CO. Walker received a B.S. in secondary education from Central State College at Wilberforce, OH, before transferring to the University of Denver to do graduate work in theater. In 1963, Walker founded the Eden Theatrical Workshop, Inc., of which she is president.

Walker is active as a playwright. Most of her plays have been one-act social-action dramas that have been produced by the Eden Theatrical Workshop for the Curtis Park Cultural Heritage Program in Denver. They include It’s Only Money (1970), about a married couple whose furniture is repossessed; A Dollar a Day Keeps the Doctor Away (1970), an attack on neighborhood community health services; We All Pay (1970), which has to do with a housewife who hears the screams of a women being raped and stabbed but doesn’t want to get involved, only to find out that the victim is her daughter; My Own Man (1970), about a young man turning 21 who is trying to decide which political party he wants to join; The Real Estate Man (1970), centering on a realtor so determined to make a sale that he is insensitive to his clients’ needs; To Cuss or Bus (1970), a dialectic on the advantages and disadvantages of bussing; Grades—Plus or Minus (1970), which presents a dialectic among parents after they put their son on punishment until he improves his school grades; and Blood, Booze and Booty (1975), a full-length bicentennial play based on the life of Aunt Clara Brown, who arrived in Denver in 1859. Walker received several honors in Denver, including the Lucy M. Walker Humanitarian Award (1976); Woman of the Year Award (1977); Founder’s Award from the Eden Theatrical Workshop (1979); Citizen of the Week by KOA Radio and Capital Federal Savings and Loan Association (1980); and Community Development, Services and Education Award from the Regional Office of the U.S. Office of Human Development Services (1982).

WALKER, PHILLIP E. Walker is performing artist, director, producer, and artistic director of the African American Drama Company of San Francisco. Born in Chicago, Walker received his B.A. in theater from Loyola University, M.A. in theater history and criticism from the University of Illinois at Urbana, and M.F.A. in acting from the University of California at Davis. He has taught theater at Lincoln University of Missouri, the University of Illinois, Yuba College in Illinois, the University of California at Davis, and the People’s School of Dramatic Arts in San Francisco Company. Walker has performed in more than 100 plays and television and film productions. He found his niche as a performance artist in his piece Can I Speak for You Brother? (1978), in which he incorporates dance, poetry, drama, letters, storytelling, speeches, music, and puppetry to focus on nine exceptional African American figures. He traces the plight of black experiences beginning with the crossing of the Middle Passage to “tomorrow.”

WARD, DOUGLAS TURNER. Ward, an actor, director, and playwright, is a living legend in the world of theater. Although he has achieved much during his lifetime, his cofounding of the Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) in 1968 ranks as his greatest achievement. The NEC has spawned over 200 productions within a 35-year period. It has been the incubator of opportunity for such talents as Denzel Washington, Phylicia Allen-Rashad, Samuel L. Jackson, Angela Bassett, Giancarlo Esposito, Laurence Fishburne, Esther Rolle, Cleavon Little, Frances Foster, Sherman Helmsley, David Alan Grier, and Lynn Whitfield. Playwrights like Paul Carter Harrison, Charles Fuller, Judi Ann Mason, Joseph A. Walker, Phillip Hayes Dean, J. E. Franklin, Endesha Mae Holland, and Aishah Rahman have all found a nurturing environment for the production of their plays. The NEC was the flagship theater for the torrid black arts movement of the halcyon 1960s civil rights movement.

Ward was born in Burnside, LA. His education was at Wilberforce University and the University of Michigan. His early life was uneventful, save for his flirtation with extreme left-wing causes. He was a journalist in those days but had a hard time making a living. In 1955, he began studying acting with Paul Mann at the Actor’s Workshop in New York, and by 1956, he debuted in Eugene O’Neill’s play The Iceman Cometh. Later he understudied Sidney Poitier in Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun. It was around this time that Ward began writing plays. His first two efforts, Day of Absence and Happy Ending, were very successful off Broadway.

Ward, a garrulous, outspoken man, began talking about the lack of opportunity for black actors and black theater. This led to an invitation from the New York Times to write an op-ed piece on the state of black theater. Ward accepted and threw down the gauntlet when he wrote “If any hope outside of chance individual fortune exists for Negro playwrights as a group, or for that matter, Negro actors or other theater craftsman, the most immediate, pressing, practical, absolutely minimally essential active first step is the development of a permanent Negro company of at least Off-Broadway size and dimension. Not in the future . . . but now!” W. McNeil Lowrey of the Ford Foundation read the article and invited Ward and his associates, actor Robert Hooks and theater manager Gerald S. Krone, to meet with him. The Ford Foundation subsequently funded $434,000 to what eventually became the NEC.

Ward and his associates used as a model Bertolt Brecht’s famed Berliner Ensemble, a logical choice given Ward’s left-wing past. But Ward also wisely included a training component along with a 15-member acting company. From its first production, Peter Weiss’s Song of the Lusitanian Bogey, the NEC became the envy of the theatrical world. The productions were sharp and crisp, the actors on point, the costuming outrageous, and the lighting brilliant. Not one to equivocate, Ward led the NEC with an iron hand, acting in some plays, directing others, with an eye to the future. But a reliance on “soft money” led to a retrenchment when Ford ceased funding the theater. Ward continued to lead the company through thick and thin for many years. He finally relinquished the artistic directorship of the NEC in late 1987 and is now semiretired.

WARD, THEODORE (TED, 1902–83). Ward was a prolific pioneer playwright who gained recognition for Big White Fog (1938) and Our Lan’ (1941). Fog, a successful black play of the 1940s, was one of the best black plays to evolve out of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Theatre Negro Unit. It was among the earliest dramas by an African American playwright to be produced on Broadway in 1947. He moved to New York City during the 1940s, where he was one of the founders and executive director of the Negro Playwrights Company. He wrote news and radio scripts for the War Department during World War II. In the 1950s, he returned to Chicago, where he continued to write. He remained relatively quiescent until the mid-1960s, when interest in his work was revived during the new black theater movement of that decade. After a period of inactivity, Ward was chosen as head of the South Side Center of the Performing Arts, Inc., with the Louis Theatre and School of Drama as its locus. Operating under a grant, Ward leased and refurbished a movie house on 35th Street, renaming it the Louis Theatre. He programmed a new version of his 20-year-old play, Our Lan’, as the opening production. Since the 1960s, Ward has conducted writing seminars in Chicago and New Orleans, where he was playwright-in-residence at the Free Southern Theatre.

Ward has authored 19 plays. His two most popular plays are Big White Fog and Our Lan’. Fog is a historical drama set in Chicago during the height of the Negro Renaissance of the 1920s and the Great Depression of the 1930s. It intertwines issues of Garveyism, capitalism, communism, color stratification, and intraracism to depict an African American family wrestling with the big white fog of oppression. Fog was produced by the Negro Unit of the Chicago Federal Theatre at the Great Northern Theatre (April–May 1938) and the Negro Playwrights Company at the Lincoln Theatre in Harlem (October–December 1940) for 64 performances under the direction of Powell Lindsay. Canada Lee was featured in the cast. Our Lan’ is also a historical drama in two acts. It is set shortly after the American Civil War and depicts the efforts of newly freed slaves to settle on land off the coast of Georgia. It was the recipient of the Theatre Guild Award (1947). Productions were produced by Associated Playwrights, Inc., at the Henry Street Settlement Playhouse in New York City (February 1947); on Broadway by the Theatre Guild at the Royal Theatre in New York City (September–November 1947) for 41 performances; and by Ward at the South Side Center of the Performing Arts in Chicago (1968) for a 10-month run.

Other plays Ward authored include Sick and Tiahd (alternate title, Sick and Tired, 1937), Falcon of Adowa (1938), Even the Dead Arise (1938), Deliver the Goods (1941), Shout Hallelujah! (1941), Of Human Grandeur (original title, John Brown, 1949, revised in 1963), Throwback (1951), Whole Hog or Nothing (1952), and Daubers (1953). Ward was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Zona Gale fellowship and Audience Development Committee Outstanding Pioneer Award for his contributions to the growth and development of black theater (1975), Theatre Guild Award for Our Lan’ (1947), Negro of the Year Award (1947) by the Schomburg Collection of the New York Public Library, Guggenheim Foundation fellowship for creative writing (1947), National Theatre Conference Award (1947–48), Rockefeller Foundation grant (1978), and DuSable Writers’ Seminary and Poetry Festival Award (1982). Ward died in Chicago at age 81 after a short illness.

WARD, VAL GRAY. Ward, an actor and producer, was a seminal figure in the world of black theater, both onstage and as founder of Kuumba Theatre in Chicago. She was born in Mound Bayou, MS, America’s oldest black town. She moved to Chicago in 1951 and became involved in the arts community. At the height of the black arts movement in 1968, she and her husband, Francis Gray, founded Kuumba Theatre. Most of their plays combined elements from the Christian church and African ritual. She served as director and producer of the organization for over 25 years, during which they produced such gems as The Amen Corner and Five on the Black Hand Side. She also produced Useni Eugene Perkins’s play The Image Makers, which was also presented in Lagos, Nigeria, at the 1977 African Arts Festival. Over time, Ward developed her own one-woman shows that she performs at various colleges and universities around the country. They are I Am a Black Woman (1966), and The Life of Harriett Tubman (1971).

WASHINGTON, CAESAR G. Washington, a playwright, honed his craft with the National Ethiopian Art Theatre in New York City, which grew out of the Ethiopian Art Theatre in Chicago during the 1920s. Washington’s two best-known plays are The Gold Front Stores, Inc. (1924), and Candle in the Wind (1967). His first play, Front Stores, is a comedy in three acts about a fraudulent scheme devised by two grocery store owners to swindle a not-too-bright young man out of his money. The National Ethiopian Art Theatre mounted it at the Lafayette Theatre in New York City (March 1924) under the direction of Raymond O’Neill (white) featuring Abbie Mitchell and Edna Thomas. Candle is a historical drama in four acts chronicling the events leading up to the murder of a black senator from Mississippi during the Reconstruction period in 1875. Productions were mounted by the South Side Center of the Performing Arts, Chicago (1969), and the Free Southern Theatre in New Orleans (1978) on a Rockefeller Foundation grant.

WASHINGTON, DENZEL. Touted as one of the finest actors onstage, on screen, and in television, Washington is also a producer and director. He has made well over 100 appearances in movies, television, and the theater. Among them are The Manchurian Candidate, Training Day, Remember the Titans, The Bone Collector, Man on Fire, The Pelican Brief, Malcolm X, Glory, A Soldier’s Story, Mo’Better Blues, Antwone Fischer, The Preacher’s Wife, He Got Game, Much Ado about Nothing, St. Elsewhere, Philadelphia, Devil in a Blue Dress, and American Gangster.

Washington was born in Mount Vernon, NY. He enrolled in Fordham University in 1976 as a premedicine major. He dropped out of college due to poor grades but decided to reenroll and become a double major in journalism and drama. He continued to study drama at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco but left prematurely and moved to Los Angeles. Unable to find work, he returned to Mount Vernon. He struggled to find acting parts in New York City until he was cast in Laurence Holder’s play When the Chickens Come Home to Roost, a play about an imaginary meeting between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Washington plunged into the role of Malcolm X and, with the aid of director Allie Woods, gave a mesmerizing performance at Woodie King Jr.’s Henry Street Theatre on the Lower East Side. His work in Chickens helped him to land the role of Private First Class Melvin Peterson in the Negro Ensemble Company’s production of Charles Fuller’s Pulitzer Prize–winning A Soldier’s Play. Washington played the role of Peterson in both the stage and film versions. This solid body of work put him on the A list in Hollywood. Thereafter Washington worked steadily as an actor in film and television but was occasionally lured back to live theater. In 2005, he returned to the stage for a limited run in a NYSF/Public Theatre presentation of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Among the numerous awards Washington has garnered as an actor, two are historic. He won an Oscar for best supporting actor in the film Glory (1989), the first for an African American, and another for Training Day (2001) in the leading man category, the second for a black actor—Sidney Poitier was the first.

WASHINGTON, VON H. Washington is a multitalented, nationally known performer, director, playwright, and teacher whose attributes have contributed immeasurably to the American theater for over 30 years. He has worked on over 300 productions of stage, screen, and television in various capacities. Washington holds a B.S. and an M.A. from Western Michigan University and a Ph.D. from Wayne State University. He presently teaches at Wayne State University. In the early days of the black arts movement, Washington was involved in the old Concept East Theatre in Detroit after Woodie King Jr. Washington has written 15 plays, mostly on the twin themes of African American history and the quest for freedom. They have been performed at various theaters and academic institutions across the country. He has either taught, directed, or performed at the Missouri Repertory Theatre, Los Angeles Theatre Center, University of Michigan, Detroit Repertory Theatre, and various other theaters and institutions. Among the plays written by Washington are The Black American Dream (1986); Seven Stops to Freedom (1996), about the Underground Railroad during slavery times; Down by the Riverside (1996), depicting the life of Sojourner Truth; and Rosa Parks: More Than a Woman (1996), the life story of the woman who spawned the civil rights movement. His other plays include The Children of Herero (1999), When Freedom Came (2002), Let the Brotha Talk (1995), and Looking for a Good Thing (1998). Washington is a member of Actors Equity, the Screen Actors Guild, and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

WELDON, CHARLES. A journeyman actor, director, and producer, Weldon worked for over 30 years in theater in a variety of roles before being tapped to become the artistic director of the famed Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) in 2004. He has appeared in nearly 40 NEC productions, such as A Soldier’s Play, The River Niger, Colored People’s Time, Ododo, and The Brownsville Raid. Weldon has also performed in regional theater in productions like Birdie Blue, The Little Tommie Parker Celebrated Colored Minstrel Show, King Hedley II, Jitney, and The Piano Lesson.

Born in Oklahoma, Weldon moved to New York City at an early age. His career in show business began with the Paradons, a doo-wop rhythm and blues singing group that had mixed success. He made his stage debut in the 1969 Broadway production of Big Time Buck White with Muhammad Ali in the cast, and he was in the 1973 production of The River Niger. He auditioned for and was accepted by the NEC in 1970, where he has primarily worked except for the odd job regionally or in television and film. In these twin mediums, he has appeared in Roots: The Next Generations, Malcolm X, A Woman Called Moses, Police Story, Law and Order, Brewster Place, Hoop Soldiers, Rooster Cogburn, and Dynasty. Weldon is a cofounder of the Alumni of the NEC. His first two seasons as artistic director were marked by the debuts of two new plays, Leslie Lee’s Blues for a Broken Tongue and Jimmy Barden’s Offspring. Weldon received an Obie Award for his performance in Gus Edward’s The Offering.

WESLEY, RICHARD. A playwright and screenwriter, Wesley was born in Newark, NJ. He became interested in writing in the 1950s after witnessing the works of Rod Serling, Paddy Chayefsky, and others during the golden age of television. Upon enrollment at Howard University, he informed Owen Dodson that his interest was writing for television and the big screen and that he had no plans to be a playwright. Dodson responded with “Child, if I can teach you to write for the stage, you’ll be able to write for anything.” Over the next four years, Wesley absorbed the technique of writing for the stage under the direction of Dodson and the estimable Ted Shine. He wrote his first play, Put My Dignity before 307, as an undergraduate and was a finalist in the Samuel French National Collegiate Playwriting Award.

After graduation in 1967, he was offered a job as editor of Black Theatre magazine for the New Lafayette Theatre by playwright Ed Bullins. It was there that Wesley’s talents bloomed as a playwright. He wrote The Street Corner; Black Terror; Knock, Knock, Who Dat’; Gettin’ It Together; and Black Terror. This last play was produced at Joseph Papp’s NYSF/Public Theatre and won a Drama Desk Award. Wesley went on to write many other plays, including The Past Is the Past, Butterfly, The Mighty Gents, and Strike Heaven on the Face.

His screenwriting debut was a huge success with the 1974 comedy Uptown Saturday Night with Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte. It was a box office hit, as was the 1975 sequel, Let’s Do It Again, with the same actors. His other screenwriting credits include Fast Forward, Mandela and DeKlerk, Native Son, Bojangles, A Piece of the Action, and Deacons for Defense. He has also written a film for children, The House of Dies Drear, for PBS and episodes for the TV series 100 Centre St. and Fallen Angels. Though Wesley has succeeded in his quest to write for the screen, he prefers to write for the stage because of the immediacy of theater. Wesley has worked as an adjunct at such educational institutions as Manhattanville College, Wesleyan University, Manhattan Community College, and Rutgers University. He was an associate professor at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.

WEST, ALLISON. West, a playwright, was active at Roger Furman’s New Heritage Repertory Theatre Company (NHRTC) and the National Black Theatre (NBT) in New York City. His one-act play Casualties (1984) is about two women who examine their loves, sorrows, hopes, and scattered joys through the lives of their professional children. It was produced at P. S. W. Studios in New York City (October 1983) under the direction of Sidney Best and by the NBT in association with the NHRTC at the NBT (June–August 1984) under the direction of Andre Robinson. Lesson Plans (1984) is a one-act play about two middle-aged teachers whose marriages have recently ended.

WEST, CHERYL L. A playwright, West was born in Chicago. She received her B.A. from the University of Illinois and for many years worked as a social worker before she started writing. Her first play, Before It Hits Home, is an exploration of the AIDS epidemic. It was a roaring success. Subsequent plays, such as Jar the Floor and Holiday Heart, have had equally hard-hitting themes. Heart, a redemptive play about a drag queen, premiered on Showtime in 2000, with Ving Rhames in the title role. Her play Before It Hits Home has been optioned by Spike Lee, for whom West is writing the original screenplay. Other plays West wrote are Puddin Pete (1993); Play On (1997), an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night written with Sheldon Epps and music by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn; and Birdie Blue (1998). West now lives and works in Seattle. Her plays have been produced at regional theaters across the country and in England. Honors and awards for West include the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Playwriting Award, Helen Hayes Award, Audience Development Committee Award, and MacArthur Foundation Award.

WHITE, EDGAR MONK NKOSI. A playwright, White was born in the West Indies island of Montserrat in 1947. He migrated to New York in 1952, living in Spanish Harlem. He joined a seminary at an early age but dropped out. After graduation from Theodore Roosevelt High School, he attended City College of New York, New York University, and the Yale School of Drama. Within two years, he was expelled by Dean Robert Brustein for performing with a Yale Black Players troupe. Early on, he had met Langston Hughes, who championed his work. At the young age of 20, Joseph Papp produced his first play, The Mummers, at the NYSF/Public Theatre, as well as six more plays during the 1970s and 1980s. The Eugene O’Neil Center, the Negro Ensemble Company (NEC), and the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club also produced his plays.

White traveled to London in the 1980s to see a production of his play Masada. This international city also produced two of his other plays, The Nine Nights and Lament for Rastafari (1971). By this time, White’s plays were becoming increasingly more militant and political in tone, especially in regard to colonialism. While in exile, White changed his middle name to Nkosi, reflecting his kinship to the motherland, Africa. His plays were also produced throughout Europe, Africa, and even Asia. White returned to the United States in 1989, completing his divinity school training as an ordained minister. He became a minister at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine Church. Production of his plays continued apace with Roger Furman at New Heritage Repertory Theatre Company, producing Trinity and Like Them That Dream. His I, Marcus Garvey became a huge success when it was produced at the Ward Theatre in Jamaica. Taking time from his writing for the stage, White wrote his first novel, The Rising, in 1990. In 1993, in conjunction with La MaMa, he wrote a blues opera about the Scottsboro boys, Ghosts: Live from Galilee, The Scottsboro Boys. It was a thinly disguised version of an earlier play, The Burghers of Calais, directed by George Ferencz and with music by Genji Ito.

Over the years, White performed as a musician and also wrote musical compositions. He has been an adjunct professor of creative writing, playwriting, and humanities at City College of New York and has also taught writing at the NEC. White is a prolific writer, having written over 40 plays, many of which have been produced both here and abroad. In his varied career, White has developed his own unique writing style incorporating several different techniques. His early plays are written in a traditional realist manner. But over the years, elements of the theater of the absurd, commedia dell’arte, and English medieval plays have colored his efforts.

Two of White’s more popular plays include The Life and Times of J. Walter Smintheus (1971), an allegorical play in one act. It shows the pitfalls and tragedy of a black man with an identity crisis. It was produced by the American National Theatre and Academy Matinee Theatre at the Theatre De Lys in New York City (February 1971) and off Broadway by the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theatre at the Other Stage (April 1971) for 38 performances. The Crucificado (1971) is a modern allegory in 25 scenes. A black man trying to escape an oppressive and unjust environment through drugs and sex murders his white father. It was produced by the Urban Arts Corps in New York City (June 1972) and the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center in New York (March 1978). Some of White’s other plays are The Mummer’s Play (1965), The Cathedral at Chartres (also known as The Figures at Chartres, 1968), The Wonderful Years (1969), Seigismundo’s Tricycle: A Dialogue of Self and Soul (1971), Les Femmes Noires (The Black Ladies, 1974), and The Pygmies and the Pyramid (1976). White was a member of the Authors Guild of New York. His honors and awards include a Rockefeller grant for playwrights, and a New York State Council grant.

WHITE, JAMES E., III. White is a playwright. Among the plays he garnered a reputation for is The Defense (1976), a fantasy in 23 scenes with music composed by White himself. A guard in a New York housing project dreams he has died. In the afterlife, he conducts a defense of his life. It was produced by the National Playwrights Conference of the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center in the Amphitheater at Waterford, CT (July 1976), for two performances. It was also produced by the New Federal Theatre at the Henry Street Settlement in New York City (November 1976). Both productions were directed by Dennis Scott. Trinity—The Long and Cheerful Road to Slavery (1982) is a trilogy of short plays. Set in postcolonial times, it depicts the consequence of colonialism on West Indian blacks. Other plays by White are La Gente (The People, 1973), Ode to Charlie Parker (1973), Offering for Nightworld (1973), Masada (a South African ritual, 1979), and Like Them That Dream: Children of Ogun (1983).

WHITE, JOSEPH. A playwright, White was born in Philadelphia in 1933. He has a degree in journalism and has worked as a newspaper columnist for the Newark News and has also worked for the radio station WNJR. White rose to prominence during the civil rights movement when, during a seven-year period, he wrote four plays that became staples in the repertoire of many emerging black theaters. With black theaters being created almost every week, there was a tremendous demand for plays, but the older authors, such as Langston Hughes, Owen Dodson, and Alice Childress, did not echo the revolutionary militant stance theaters wanted to send. White’s plays were militant but also laced with humor, irony, and understanding—often absent from plays of that era. White’s plays initially played in some of the most militant theaters, like Amiri Baraka’s (LeRoi Jones) Spirit House, Black Arts Repertory Theatre School, and Kuumba House, but their elegance showed, and they quickly became the staple of almost every leading black theater in the country. Among the plays White wrote are The Blue Boy in Black (1963), The Leader (1968), Ol Judge Mose Is Dead (1968), and The Hustle (1970). In 1963, White received a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts and a John Hay Whitney Award.

WHITEHEAD, MARYLENE. Whitehead is a Chicago-based playwright who holds a degree from Columbia College in that city. She is a faculty member at Northeastern Illinois University and teaches playwriting at Jackie Taylor’s eta Creative Arts Foundation. She has written several plays, and her musical This Far by Faith has been exceptionally successful. Other plays she wrote are A House Divided, The Forbidden Place, J Day (a musical), Born Rich, and Why Don’t You Tell Us Who You Are? Whitehead’s plays have been produced at eta Creative Arts and other venues.

WHITFIELD, VANTILE EMMANUEL. See MOTOJICHO (VANTILE EMMANUAL WHITFIELD).

WILKS, TALVIN. A well-traveled director, playwright, and dramaturge, Wilks’s work has carried him from Crossroads Theatre Company (CTC) in New Jersey to Seattle, where he joined the now-defunct Group Theatre. He is best known for his surrealistic look at an African American man’s search for identity in such plays as Tod, The Boy Toy, which premiered at the CTC in 1990. He has also directed The Love Space Demands, The Shaneequa Chronicles, and Yellow Eye. His record as a dramaturge is extensive, highlighted by his ongoing work with Ping Chong in Undesirable Elements in Seattle and Saravejo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. He has worked at the NYSF/Public Theatre, St. Louis Black Repertory Theatre, and Ensemble Theatre, as well as in France, Rome, and Scotland. Wilks also wrote Bread of Heaven (1994), presenting 30 years of a family redefining itself; The Trial of Uncle S/M, The Life in Between; The Last Oppression Drama; An American Triptych; and Occasional Grace. Wilks is a member of Spin Lab. From 2002 to 2004, he was an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He also served as interim artistic director of the New World Theatre.

WILLIAMS, DICK ANTHONY. Born in Chicago, Williams made major contributions to the field of African American theater as an actor, director, and producer during his 30 years onstage, in television, and in film. His New York City stage debut was in the title role of Big Time Buck White at the Village South Theatre (1968). Among the numerous plays Williams performed in are Nigger Nightmare (New York Shakespeare Festival/NYSF/Public Theatre, 1971), Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death (Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York City, 1971), Jamimma (Henry Street Playhouse in New York City, 1972), What the Wine Sellers Buy (New Federal Theatre in New York City, 1973), Black Picture Show (Vivian Beaumont Theatre in New York City, 1975), We Interrupt This Program (Ambassador Theatre in New York City, 1975), The Poison Tree (Ambassador Theatre in New York City, 1976), and The Pig Pen (American Place Theatre in New York City, 1970). Williams coproduced (with Woodie King Jr.) Black Girl (Theatre de Lys in New York City, 1971), directed In New England Winter (Henry Street Playhouse in New York City, 1971), and produced A Recent Killing (New Federal Theatre in New York City, 1973). This extensive theatrical background served him well as he transitioned into film and television, in which his credits are numerous. On Broadway, Williams won the Drama Desk Award for outstanding performance in What the Wine Sellers Buy (1974) and a nomination for outstanding featured actor in a play for Black Picture Show (1975). He also earned consecutive Tony Award nominations as best supporting or featured actor (dramatic) for What the Wine Sellers Buy (1974) and for Black Picture Show (1975).

WILLIAMS, JAYE AUSTIN. Williams has functioned in the theater world for several years and in many ways, equally adept at acting, directing, dramaturgy, and playwriting. Since earning a B.S. from Skidmore College in 1978, Williams has honed her craft at the Cherry Lane Theatre, the Manhattan Theatre Club, Sundance Theatre Lab, and other venues. She has directed at Karamu Repertory Theatre Company, the Hangar Theatre, and the Long Wharf Theatre and has functioned as a dramaturge at various theaters across the country. She has used this experience to her advantage in crafting her own plays, which include American Dreams, an adaptation from the book New Work Now by Sapphire, and A Not So Quiet Nocturne, about an African American deaf woman living with AIDS. Her other plays are Passion Play, If One Could Fly, Suburbs, Ascent of the Muse, and Girth. Williams is also the author of the novel Jasmine (2005). Her honors and awards are playwright fellow at Manhattan Theatre Club (1997–98), National Endowment for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group director fellowship (1999–2000), and artist-in-residence at Tribecca Performing Arts Center (2000–2).

WILLIAMS, PAULETTE. See SHANGE, NTOZAKE (PAULETTE WILLIAMS).

WILLIAMS, SAMM-ART. An actor and playwright, Williams was born in Burgaw, NC. He was encouraged at an early age by his mother to write plays. She was a high school English teacher and drama director who cast him in the plays she directed. Williams received his B.A. from Morgan State College in Baltimore, MD (1968). He majored in political science and had wanted to become a civil rights lawyer, however the lure of theater won out. He moved to Philadelphia and joined the Freedom Theatre, where he gained acting experience.

In 1974, Williams went to New York City, where he joined the Playwrights Workshop of the celebrated Negro Ensemble Company (NEC). He performed in several productions, and the NEC produced two of his earliest plays in the Season-within-a-Season productions. His signature play is Home (1979), a full-length drama about a young black North Carolina farmer who, like the prodigal son, leaves home for the good life up North. He becomes absorbed in the underbelly of the city only to return home to his roots as a better and more enlightened person. Home was produced off Broadway by the NEC at St. Marks Playhouse (December 1979–February 1980) for 82 performances and on Broadway at the Cort Theatre (May 1980) for an additional 279 performances under the direction of Dean Irby. Cast members included Charles Brown (nominated for a Tony Award), L. Scott Caldwell, and Michele Shay. Subsequent productions of Home were mounted throughout the country. It was nominated for a Tony Award and won the John Gassner Playwriting Medallion for the most provocative new play by an American, as well as an Audience Development Committee Award for best play of 1980.

In 2007, the new NEC welcomed back alumnus Williams with a production of his new plays, The Waiting Room, at the 45th Street Theatre in New York City. It is a dramedy set in a hospital waiting room where strange things happen when friends and relatives gather around a loved one who appears to be at death’s door. It was directed by Charles Weldon, an NEC member since 1970 and a veteran of stage and screen, who was selected as the new artistic director. Other play Williams authored include Welcome to Black River (1974), The Coming (1974), Do unto Others (1974), A Love Play (1976), The Sixteenth Round II (original title, The Pathetique, 1980), Friends (1980), Kamilia (1975), and The Last Caravan (a musical, mid-1970s).

WILLIAMS-LAWRENCE, VALERIE J. A playwright Williams-Lawrence was born and reared in Gulfport, MS, and received her education at Dillard University in New Orleans. The mother of three boys, Williams-Lawrence has been employed as human resources manager for Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh, PA, since 1968. Her representative plays include Royal Relations (1983), a full-length play. It is a satirical look at upper-middle–class black families. Kuntu Repertory Theatre at the University of Pittsburgh gave two staged readings of the play (1983). Magnolia Aid Society (1984) is a full-length drama dealing with struggle, love, and hope in a traditional black environment.

WILLIAMS-WITHERSPOON, KAMMIKA. Professor Williams-Witherspoon, an associate professor of theater at Temple University, is a playwright, poet, anthropologist, and educator. She earned a B.A., M.A., M.F.A., and Ph.D. and has written 6 books of poetry and over 20 plays, with 10 being produced professionally. To the theatergoing public, however, she is largely unknown. A native of Darby, PA, she has had a divided career, using her journalism degree at Howard University (1980) to work as a newspaper reporter, television editor, and magazine writer. As a writer, she has concentrated on poetry and playwriting. Among the plays she wrote are Nappy Truths; What Price: Unity; Dog Days: The Killing of Octavio Catto; Gumbo; From Brillo Pads to Feminine Pads; Where Were You in 1965?; Brown Ices: Chocolate Drops and We the People; Common Folk; and Survival Strategies: A Tale of Faith, We the People. Williams-Witherspoon was the recipient of the American Poetry Center Award, Lila Wallace creative arts fellowship, Women’s International League Peace and Freedom Award, Theatre Association fellowship, Pew Charitable Trust playwright exchange, and Penumbra Theatre Award (1993, 1997).

WILSON, AUGUST (1945–2005). A playwright extraordinaire, Wilson ushered in the 21st century with Radio Golf, as the last installment of an unprecedented 10-play cycle chronicling the black experience for each decade of the 20th century. It was an achievement that is unmatched in the annals of black theater. Among his awards, he received two Pulitzer Prizes and seven New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards. Fences alone won four Tony Awards and grossed over $11 million—a Broadway record for a nonmusical.

Wilson was born in Pittsburgh, PA, one of six children of a biracial relationship. Wilson’s mother, Daisy Wilson, was an African American cleaning woman who, according to Wilson, influenced his warrior spirit. His father, Frederick August Kittel, a German immigrant, lived with the family only a short time. At age 15, Wilson dropped out of the predominantly white parochial Gladstone Vocational High School after a teacher accused him of plagiarizing a 20-page paper he wrote on Napoleon. Wilson could have very easily become another black dropout statistic, but his determination and quest for knowledge led him to the Carnegie Library. There he studied and read everything of interest to him, in particular anthropology; theology; and works by Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, Arna Bontemps, and Langston Hughes. He even memorized the dictionary. Also during this time, Wilson became intrigued by the poetry of black nationalist writer Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones). He bought a typewriter for $20 in 1965 to pursue his interest in writing poetry.

In 1968, Wilson cofounded Black Horizons Theatre with Rob Penny, a playwright and professor at the University of Pittsburgh. The first two plays they produced were by Baraka and Ed Bullins. In 1977, Claude Purdy, a long-time friend, invited Wilson to come to Saint Paul, MN. There Wilson met Marion McClinton, who would become Wilson’s primary director after Lloyd Richards’s health began to deteriorate (by then, Lloyd had directed 6 of Wilson’s plays in the 10-play cycle). Purdy encouraged Wilson to try his hand at playwriting, and he began writing Jitney after he received a fellowship from the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis. Purdy also suggested to Wilson that he submit scripts to the Eugene O’Neill Playwright Center in Waterford, CT, which he did. Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom was one of the scripts that eventually caught the eye of director Richards in 1981, and he gave it a staged reading. Ma Rainey premiered at the Yale Repertory Theatre before it opened on Broadway in 1984, where it won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for best play. It was at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre that Wilson first met actor Charles S. Dutton, who later played Levee Green in Ma Rainey to great acclaim. Dutton’s overbearing personality and nonstop energy exploded on the Broadway stage, and he so affected Wilson’s creative juices that he constructed the character of Boy Willie in The Piano Lesson after Dutton, a role he also played on Broadway.

Wilson’s relationship with Lloyd was fortuitous. Wilson was self-educated with a gift of language and characterization but a novice in the theater world. Richards, the dean and artistic director of the Yale Repertory Theatre, was a theater veteran. In 1959, he had directed the pioneering Broadway production of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun—the first black director to do so. The play readings at the Eugene O’Neill Center brought Richards and Wilson together in a professional working relationship that was almost familial, like father and son—the father Wilson never had. Richards, some 20 years his senior, was able to harness Wilson’s poetry into theatrical shape. Lloyd also introduced Wilson to Ben Mordecai, a Broadway producer who eventually produced most of Wilson’s plays. This format of reading and developing Wilson’s plays through the workshop process helped him to shape and focus his plays and to evolve as a playwright of exceptional talent. Together, Wilson, Lloyd, and Mordecai had formed a dynamic theatrical team that was of financial advantage to all three. Richards directed the first 6 plays of Wilson’s epic 10-play cycle, and Mordecai was involved in all of them, which played on Broadway.

After 14 years and a mercurial ride of theatrical success, the Wilson–Richards–Mordecai partnership was cut short due to Richards’s failing health. In 1999, Wilson called upon his old friend McClinton to direct King Hedley II. The transition was almost seamless. Wilson by then had moved to Seattle, where he finished writing the last three plays of the cycle. Wilson died on 2 October 2005, a few months shy of seeing the last play he wrote of the cycle, Radio Golf. Ironically, all three theatrical giants, Mordecai, Wilson, and Richards, died within a year of one another.

Wilson’s 10-play cycle, as they were written, includes Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1984). It was set in 1927 in a recording studio during a frigid winter in Chicago. Ma Rainey and her fellow musicians combat their white manager, an opportunistic record producer, and themselves, as Ma tries to preserve the legacy of the gut-bucket blues she made so popular in the South. This is the only play in Wilson’s 10-play cycle that Wilson sets outside the Hill District of his hometown, Pittsburgh. Fences (1987), set in 1957, deals with issues of father and son, dreams deferred, infidelity and betrayal, denial, and how these issues affect relationships. It was first presented at the National Playwrights Conference (1983). From there it moved to the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven (April–May 1985). Richards directed a stellar cast of James Earl Jones, Mary Alice, Charles Brown, Courtney Vance, Ray Aranha, Russell Costen, Crystal Coleman, and LaJara Henderson. It opened on Broadway to critical applause at the 46th Street Theatre (March 1987) under Richards’s direction, with James Earl Jones and Mary Alice retaining the role of the central characters. It won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in April 1987, four Tony Awards for best play, best director, best performance by a leading actor for Jones, and best performance by a featured actress for Alice. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (1988) is set in 1911. It is about Herald Loomis, who had been captured illegally by a bounty hunter and worked on a chain gang for seven years. Upon his release, he collects his daughter and turns up in a boardinghouse looking for his missing wife. It was first produced on the Arena Playhouse at the Yale Repertory Theatre (October 1987). Five months later, it opened on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre (March 1988) with Delroy Lindo as Loomis and Angela Basset as Martha Pentecost. The Piano Lesson (1990) is set in 1936. A brother and sister fight over whether to sell a rare piano that is emblematic of the family history. Two Trains Running (1992) is set in 1969 in a dilapidated restaurant scheduled for demolition. A recently released convict joins the displaced dreamers, who hunger for a new life. Jitney (1982) is set in 1977. In it, a gypsy cab company is scheduled to be demolished as the owner and his son clash over their shared history. Seven Guitars (1996), set in 1948, tells the story of the final days of a Pittsburgh blues guitarist and how and why he died. King Hedley II (1999) is set in 1985. Hedley returns to his old neighborhood to find everything changed and tries to reestablish himself. Gem of the Ocean (2004) is set in 1904. Former slaves and men born into freedom meet in the home of Aunt Ester, a central figure in the Hill District. Radio Golf (2005) is set in 1990. Two real estate entrepreneurs have to decide between opportunity and tradition as the home of the historical black matriarch, Aunt Ester, is scheduled for demolition. Early plays written by Wilson include The Janitor, Recycle, Malcolm X, The Coldest Day of the Year, The Homecoming, and the musical satire Black Bart and the Sacred Hills. Over the years, with the success of his plays, Wilson achieved one honor after another. He garnered the Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, Heinz Award, Great Britain’s Olivier Award, Presidential National Humanities Award; and an election to the Academy of Arts and Letters and the Academy of Humanities.

After Wilson announced his terminal illness, Rocco Landesman, President of the Jujamcyn Theatre Group and a producer of Wilson’s plays, announced on 2 September 2005 that the former Virginia Theatre would be renamed the August Wilson Theatre. The theater was named formally the August Wilson Theatre in ceremonies held on 16 October 2005. This marks the first time a Broadway theater has been named for an African American. Also, Wilson’s hometown of Pittsburgh renamed the former African American Culture Center of Greater Pittsburgh the August Wilson Center for African American Culture. Tributes poured in from all over the world, including one held at the Intiman Theatre in Seattle highlighted by a moving, emotional speech by novelist/professor Charles Johnson. This was followed by the Seattle Repertory Theatre’s all-out tribute to Wilson in February 2006. They presented scenes from all 10 of the Wilson canon, performed by a who’s-who list of professional actors who had achieved prominence by appearing in Wilson’s plays. Among them were Anthony Chisholm, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Keith Randolph Smith, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, John Earl Jelks, Rocky Carroll, Derrick Sanders, Cynthia Jones, and Charlayne Woodard. It was truly a night of remembrance, and while there were other tributes around the country, it would be hard to imagine any of them exceeding what happened on 13 February 2006. Even by 2007, it was still difficult to measure the impact of Wilson’s death.

Wilson was also awarded honorary degrees from the New School University, Columbia University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Washington, State University of New York, Old Westbury, Howard University, Yale University, Hamilton College, DePaul University, University of Minnesota, Seattle University, Manhattanville College, Boston University, Cal State Northridge, MaCalester College, Clarion College, Lincoln University, Amherst College, Hamline University, Rutgers University, University of Hartford, Dartmouth College, Morgan State University, Carnegie Mellon University, City University of New York, Princeton University, Washington University of St. Louis, and Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (high school diploma), at which Wilson said he had returned the book he had “borrowed.”

WILSON, FRANK H. (1886–1956). Active between the 1910s and 1940s, Wilson was a pioneer playwright, actor, and singer in regional and Broadway stage and films. His play Meek Mose (1928), a social drama, was the third play by an African American to be produced on Broadway and the first by a black production company. A native of New York City, after World War I, he studied theater at the American Academy of Dramatic Art at Carnegie Hall under Franklin H. Sargent and later Anne Wolter. In 1908 at age 22, he joined a vaudeville troupe, Carolina Comedy Four, for three years. Shortly thereafter, as a mail carrier, he began writing short plays about his life experiences. During the mid-1910s, he found an outlet for his passion in Harlem with the Lincoln Players, a group he organized at the Lincoln Theatre. There he wrote, directed, and performed in his own plays, The Flash, The Prison of Life, Colored America, Race Pride, The Good Sister Jones, Roseanna, Happy Southern Folk, Back Home, and The Frisco Kid. Later, he joined the Lafayette Players at the Lafayette Theatre, playing his first role there in The Deep Purple. He also produced his own plays at the Lafayette, including The Heartbreakers (1921), with Edna Thomas and Lionel Monagas; Pa Williams’ Gal (1923), featuring Rose McClendon and Richard B. Harrison; and A Train North, a play the players produced at the Harlem YMCA Little Theatre on a double bill with Heartbreakers in 1923. Wilson also founded the Aldridge Players (1926) at the YMCA, which mounted three of his one-act plays, Flies, Color Worship, and Sugar Cane—the first-prize winner of the Opportunity Contest Awards (1926).

In 1928, Meek Mose opened on Broadway for one week. The Works Division of the New York Department of Public Welfare presented it under the revised title Brother Mose throughout New York City on the Park Circuit and at Central Park. Wilson’s last and best-known play, Walk Together, Chillun, a social drama with black spirituals, was the first production of the New York Negro Unit of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Theatre Project at the Lafayette Theatre in 1936.

In 1925, Wilson made his professional debut as a stage actor in a supporting role with the Provincetown Players in Greenwich Village, New York City, in the original stage production of The Emperor Jones. It starred Charles Gilpin and later Paul Robeson, whom he played opposite in the 1933 film version. A year before, Wilson had appeared with Robeson in the premier of All God’s Chillun Got Wings (1924). In 1926, he played a supporting role and later the lead in In Abraham’s Bosom. Owing to the recognition he garnered in these plays as a leading black actor, he landed roles in several off-Broadway and Broadway plays, such as Justice (1920), Porgy (1927), Roll Sweet Chariot (1930), Blood Stream (1932), They Shall Not Die (1934), Memphis Bound (1945), Anna Lucasta (1946), and Take a Giant Step (1953). Wilson also independently produced such all-black films as Paradise in Harlem (1939), Murder on Lenox Avenue (1941), and Sunday Sinners (1941).

WILSON, TRACY SCOTT. A playwright, Wilson is from Newark, NJ. She obtained her B.A. from Rutgers in 1989 and M.A. in English literature from Temple University in 1995. After receiving 28 rejection letters for her novel I Don’t Know Why the Caged Bird Won’t Shut Up, she enrolled in a playwriting course. Wilson became immersed in theater, reading over 100 plays at the Lincoln Center library. The next year, 1998, she won the prized Van Lier playwriting fellowship from the New York Theatre Workshop. In 2003, her play The Story was presented at the NYSF/Public Theatre in a joint venture with the Long Wharf Theatre. It is based on a real-life incident of an incendiary view of racial politics, journalistic malfeasance, and murder. Critics raved, and the play was produced all over the country in such theaters as the Ensemble Theatre in Houston, TX; the Tyrone Guthrie in Minneapolis; and Goodman in Chicago. Wilson is among a cadre of young, black female playwrights who dominate the black theater landscape thus far in the 21st century. Among the plays she has written are Exhibit #9, Leader of the People, The Good Negro, Fairy Tale, A Small World (10-minute play), Order My Steps, A Musical, and Sista Style. Wilson has been recognized with several distinctive and prestigious awards, including Jerome Foundation grant, Helen Merrill emerging playwright grant, AT&T onstage grant, Giles writing fellowship, Kesselring playwriting fellowship, and the Van Lier playwriting fellowship (twice).

WIMBERLY, BRIDGETTE. Wimberly is an emerging playwright of the 21st century. She is a native of Cleveland who resides in New York and works in the field of medicine. Her biggest success has been Saint Lucy’s Eyes, which was developed from a working exercise when she was enrolled in the Lincoln Center Playwrights Laboratory. It was subsequently chosen by the late Wendy Wasserstein in 1999 for the Women’s Mentors Project at the famed Cherry Lane Theatre in New York. For over a year, Wasserstein served as a dramaturge and mentor to Wimberly as she rewrote and polished the play. Cherry Lane produced it off Broadway in 2001 in a successful run. The play has since become a staple in the regional theater circuit. It takes place in Memphis, TN, one day before the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and centers on an elderly woman abortionist called Grandma. The role was created by Ruby Dee, and it has quickly become a signature role. Other plays Wimberly wrote include Forest City, The Mark, and Separation of Blood, the last play being an exploration of the life of Charles Drew, a pioneer in the field of blood transplants. Wimberly’s plays have been produced at the St. Louis Black Repertory Theatre, Cleveland Playhouse, Alliance Theatre, and the Ensemble Theatre, among others. Wimberly is a member of Dramatists Guild and is on the board of Cherry Lane Theatre. She has won a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, Van Lier fellowship at Manhattan Theatre Club, and a Sloan Foundation grant.

WINDE, BEATRICE (1924–2004). Born in Chicago, Winde was an actress and vocalist who enjoyed a long, illustrious career in the American theater, as well as in film and television. She is perhaps best known for her role as the forlorn lover in Melvin Van Peebles’s 1971 Broadway production of Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death, for which she received a Tony Award nomination. Winde was a graduate of the Chicago Music Conservatory. She sang with several groups in Chicago and also as a soloist in a church choir before embarking on a career in the theater. She studied at the Yale School of Music and Juilliard.

Though she occasionally played lead roles, Winde was basically a character actor who relished finding the “spine” of the character and then embellishing it in a richly detailed, nuanced characterization. Sometimes she would render conversationally, “When I find the spine, it’s mine, honey!” During her lengthy career, Winde appeared at the Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, the Negro Ensemble Company (NEC), Playwrights Horizons, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Signature Theatre Company, A Contemporary Theatre, the NYSF/Public Theatre, and many others. She has appeared in A Lesson before Dying, The Young Man from Atlanta, Dreaming Emmit, In White America, One Last Look, and numerous productions at the NEC. Winde also made over 30 film and television appearances in such vehicles as The Sopranos, Jefferson in Paris, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The Cosby Show, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, NYPD Blue, Malcolm X, The Doctors, and Mickey Blue Eyes, to name a few. Winde died two days short of her 80th birthday. She is the recipient of an Audience Development Committee Award, a Theatre World Award, and a Living Legend Award from the National Black Theatre Festival.

WOLFE, ELTON (CLYDE). Playwright Wolfe was formerly associated with Aldridge Players/West (AP/W) in San Francisco. He received a Ph.D. in theater from Stanford University (1977). His plays of note include Men Wear Mustaches (1968), a domestic drama in one act. After a woman deserts her husband, she has second thoughts and tries to get back together with him, but it is too late. The Big Shot (1969) is a comedy in one act. A young chauffeur visits his mother in his employer’s Rolls Royce. He plays the part of a wealthy man after he finds out his mother had told everyone he rich. The After Party (1970) is a comedy in one act. Two young men have a dialogue about “black” and “Negro” attitudes.

WOLFE, GEORGE C. A director, playwright, and producer, the mercurial Wolfe was a dominating force on the American theatrical landscape in the 1990s. In 1992, he held two positions as artistic director and producing manager of the New York Shakespeare Festival (NYSF)/Public Theatre, succeeding the late Joseph Papp. By decade’s end, he had won two Tony Awards for his musicals Jelly’s Last Jam (1991) and Bring in ’da Noise, Bring in ’da Funk (1996) and directed Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, which not only won a Tony but the Pulitzer Prize as well. All three productions had lengthy Broadway runs and were successful financially.

Wolfe was born in Frankfort, KY, in 1954, and began writing plays at the age of eight or nine. His attendance at Kentucky State College was short lived. He transferred to Pomona College, where he earned a B.A. in theater (1976). While in California, he worked with C. Bernard Jackson at the Inner-City Cultural Center and picked up additional theater experience. He moved to New York City in 1979 and enrolled at New York University, where he earned an M.F.A. in dramatic writing and musical theater. He began teaching at City College of New York and the Richard Allen Center. It was also in New York where he worked with James V. Hatch at the Hatch-Billops Archival Center. During the 1990s and into the 21st century, Wolfe directed some 11 Broadway hits, including Topdog/Underdog, Elaine Stritch at Liberty, Twilight: Los Angeles, and Caroline or Change.

His first success as a playwright is The Colored Museum (1986), which premiered at Crossroads Theatre Company in New Brunswick, New Jersey (March 1986), under the direction of Lee Richardson. This satire explored the myths and contradictions inherent in the African American community. It was an instant hit and soon became a staple in the repertoire of black theaters across the country. It is a lampoon of the black experience comprised of a series of 12 museum exhibits that come to life, revealing the myths and madness of stereotypes of black culture. Among the subjects hilariously and mercilessly satirized are Afro wigs, Josephine Baker, A Raisin in the Sun, black song-and-dance musicals, Ebony magazine, and many other aspects of the black heritage. In New York City, the NYSF/Public Theatre produced it at the Susan Stein Shiva Theatre (October 1986) with the same director as the premiere and with a cast that featured Loretta Devine, Tommy Hollis, Reggie Montgomery, Vickilyn Reynolds, and Danitra Vance. It won the 1986 Dramatists Guild Award. Other plays Wolfe penned include Up for Grabs (1975), Block Party (play of black life with music, 1976), Queenie Pie: An Evening of Vintage Ellington (a full-length musical, 1986), Harlem Song (a Broadway-style musical illustrating the history of Harlem, 2002), The Wild Party (2000), Blackout: A Play (1990), Spunk (1989), Paradise (1985), Back Alley Tales (1979), Tribal Rites (1978), and The Block Party (1976). After 12 successful years, Wolfe left the NYSF/Public Theatre to seek opportunities in film, though he continues to work in theater. His latest effort was directing Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage for the NYSF/Public Theatre’s annual Theatre in the Park series in Central Park in the summer of 2006.

He is the recipient of a CBS/Foundation of the Dramatists Guild Playwriting Award for The Colored Museum (1986) and grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Institute for Musical Theatre. Wolfe’s honors and awards include the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, Drama Desk Award, Obie Award, and Tony Awards.

WOMEN’S ISSUES. During the early decades of the 1920s and 1930s, pioneer African American female playwrights, such as Angelina Weld Grimké, Ruth Gaines-Shelton, Myrtle Smith Livingston, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Eulalie Spence, and Marita Bonner, established black theater traditions. Their primary concern was the wellbeing of the black community. They explored issues that were different from those of their black male counterparts and that impacted the lives of black people—the military, children, lynching, the sanctity of family, the absent father, miscegenation, marriage, racism, the disparity between religious ideology and practice, and the depiction of heroes and heroines. In the 1970s, during the early stages of the women and feminist movement, contemporary black female dramatists like Adrienne Kennedy, Ntozake Shange, Alice Childress, Anna Deveare Smith, Sonia Sanchez, Aishah Rahman, and Suzan-Lori Parks built upon the themes and subject matter of their predecessors. They also broadened the landscape to explore the experience of being black and female while relating historical, social, political, theoretical, and cultural issues to their works. In For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf (1977), Ntozake Shange examines the theme of black male–black female relationships told from a feminist perspective and of women struggling to survive. It is a drama of self-celebration, utilizing poetry, dance, color symbolism, and intimate personal experiences that explore the many facets of a black woman’s psyche. It is performed by seven black women. Each is distinguished by a color of the rainbow—Lady in Brown, Lady in Yellow, Lady in Red, Lady in Green, Lady in Purple, Lady in Blue, and Lady in Orange. It sparked wails of protest from both sides of the gender divide, but the richness of its prose could not be denied. Sonia Sanchez’s play Sister Sonji (1969) is a semiautobiographical monologue in one act. Her plea is for equal representation for women within the black arts movement of the 1960s that was dominated by black men. Alice Childress’s Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story in Black and White (1973) is about the denial of women’s rights in the South after the Reconstruction. She challenges the laws that prohibit marriage between blacks and whites, divorce (even within the race), and property rights, as well as unwritten laws that limit upward mobility. In Sally’s Rape (1989), an audience interactive piece by Robby McCauley, the subject matter comes from the title. The printed text is a dialogue scenario of what evolved out of the performances at the Kitchen in Soho, Lincoln Center, Studio Museum of Harlem, and the Davis Center at City College of New York (all in New York) City. The participants were comprised of three groups—two women, one black (Robbie), one white (Jeannine), and the audience, whom the women take on a historical journey through time. The audience is subdivided into groups of three. They serve as performers, witnesses, and chorus members who speak out against the inhuman atrocities that violate women’s bodies.

WOODARD CHARLAYNE. An actress and playwright, Woodard was born in 1955 in Albany, NY. She graduated from the Goodman School of Theatre of DePaul University in Chicago with an M.F.A. in 1977 and promptly set off for New York City. Within two weeks, she won a role in the Broadway production of the Fats Waller musical Ain’t Misbehavin’ with Nell Carter. She won a Drama Desk Award and received a nomination for her performance. The musical was a huge success and ran on Broadway for three years. After she appeared in the 1982 film of the same name, she was cast into the real world of fledgling actors trying to make a living. She was marginally successful, appearing in films like Hair and One Good Cop and the TV drama Days of Our Lives. But she also learned the reality that all actors endure dry spells and inactivity. She determined that there are few roles for black female actors and made a conscious decision to rectify the situation.

Woodard wrote three one-woman plays. The first two, Pretty Fire (1995) and Neat (1997), mirror real-life childhood experiences of growing up in Albany. In Real Life (2000) tells her story of trying to become an actor in New York. All these pieces were done in collaboration with and directed by Dan Sullivan, a veteran Broadway director and former artistic director of the Seattle Repertory Theatre. Sullivan started the New Playwrights Program at the theater where Woodard first applied, and the two have worked together seamlessly to realize the full potential in her plays, which have been very successful. During this period, Woodard’s career has expanded exponentially, with TV roles in Chicago Hope, Boomtown, Frasier, and Law and Order. She also appeared on and off Broadway in such plays as In the Blood, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, King Henry IV, Part I, and Twelfth Night. Woodard’s latest play Flight was commissioned by the CTG (CTG stands for the Center Theatre Group of La La Land). It premiered at the new Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles (January 2005). Unlike her other plays, this was her first ensemble piece, featuring six actors weaving stories of African folktales. Another solo piece The Night Watcher premiered in July of 2008 at the La Jolla Playhouse. Woodard’s awards include the Los Angeles Drama Critics’ Circle Award for best play for Pretty Fire, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Theatre Award for best play and best actress for Pretty Fire (1992), an Obie Award for performance of In the Blood (1999), and a Theatre Communications Group/Pew Charitable Trust National Theatre Artist Residency Program fellowship with the Mark Taper Forum.

WOODS, ALLIE, JR. A native of Houston, TX, Woods is an award-winning director and actor of over 200 productions nationally and internationally. He received his theatrical training at Texas Southern and Tennessee State University. Woods moved to New York City in 1967 to join the prestigious Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) as a founding member. Woods has directed productions off Broadway at both the NEC Playwrights/Directors Units and the Actors Studio, as well as at the New York Shakespeare Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. He also codirected the Black Quartet production that was later taken on an Eastern and Los Angeles tour, and he staged the American premiere of Ed Bullins’s The Gentleman Caller. It was at the New Federal Theatre where Woods received his greatest recognition and praise as a director for Laurence Holder’s When the Chickens Came Home to Roost, starring Denzel Washington in his award-winning stage portrayal of Malcolm X. Outside of New York City, Woods has directed productions at A Contemporary Theatre, Black/Arts West, and the University of Washington Department of Theatre in Seattle; the Ensemble Theatre in Houston, TX; and internationally at the La Venice Biennial in Italy. Wood’s most recent directing project was August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean at the Ensemble Theatre that opened in January 2008.

As an actor, Woods has performed on Broadway in Mule Bone (1991) and The Little Foxes (1997) and off Broadway in The Forbidden City, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Day of Absence, Kongi’s Harvest, and Daddy Goodness. He has worked at regional theaters around the country, such as the Alley Theatre; Actor’s Theatre of Louisville; Alabama Shakespeare Festival; Center Stage in Baltimore, MD; Denver Center Theatre Company; Pittsburgh Public Theatre; George Street Playhouse; Dayton, Ohio’s Human Race Theatre Company; and Stages Repertory of Houston, TX. Recently at the Seattle Repertory Theatre, he portrayed Ely in Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean directed by Phylicia Allen-Rashad. Woods also acted on the international stages at the Royal Shakespeare Company/World Theatre Season, the Barbican Center, Bristol Old Vic, and the Festival of Pearth and Adelaide in Australia. On the silver screen he can be seen in Girl Fight, 13 Conversations about One Thing, and Bellclair Times. His television credits include the Law and Order franchise, One Life to Live, Six Degrees, and Day of Absence (PBS). Among his awards, Woods was honored with the Audience Development Committee Recognition Award in black theater as best director for When the Chickens Came Home to Roost, which won dramatic production of the year. He also received the Trailblazer Award by the Beverly Hollywood Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In August 2008, Woods received Houston’s Ensemble Theatre 2008 Giorgee Award (named after founder George Wayne Hawkins) as Best Director for August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean.

WRIGHT, CHARLES RANDOLPH. A director, playwright, and actor, Wright was born in York, SC. He graduated with honors from Duke University in 1978. He traveled abroad and studied acting with the Royal Shakespeare Company in London and studied dance at the Alvin Ailey School in New York City. His early work as an actor was with regional theater and TV appearances in such shows as Melrose Place, Hill Street Blues, and Falcon Crest. He was also in the original cast of the 1981 hit musical Dreamgirls. In 2000, Wright’s direction of Guys and Dolls at Arena Playhouse broke all box-office records for the theater’s 50-year history. It was chosen by the Loesser estate for a national tour to celebrate the musical’s 50th anniversary. Other plays he wrote are Cuttin’ Up (2005), an adaptation from the novel by Craig Marberry about life inside of a black barbershop, and Blue, a semiautobiographical look at three generations of a black middle-class family. Wright also cowrote several plays, including the hit musical Me and Mrs. Jones, which broke box-office records at the Prince Music Theatre in Philadelphia. Among the honors and awards Wright received are the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Image Award, Helen Hayes Award, Audience Development Committee Award, Theatre Communications Group/Pew Charitable Trust residency grant at the American Conservatory Theatre, Robbie Award, and the Ovation Award.

WRIGHT, DAMON (1950–98). A playwright and journalist, Wright was born in Long Beach, CA. He attended Stanford University, graduating with a degree in English (1972). He began his career in New York City as an administrator for Dance Visions, Inc. After working for over 10 years with the New York Times, he decided to pursue his interest in theater. He became active in the New York Theatre Laboratory for playwrights. Wright died prematurely but not before writing six plays, two of which have achieved some prominence. The Quadroon Ball: An American Tragedy focuses on the free colored society that thrived from the 18th century up to the Civil War. Wright wrote Mr. Baldwin Goes to Heaven after he attended James Baldwin’s memorial. Wright’s plays have been performed at the Lincoln Center Theatre Directors Lab, the New Theatre, and the Adelaide Institute Center for Performing Arts in Australia. Wright’s other plays include A Struggle to the End, Little Black Sambo, Testimony, and The Murderous Power of Prayer.

WRIGHT, JAY. A playwright and poet, Wright was born and raised in Albuquerque, NM. After serving in the U.S. Army, he earned his B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley. He studied at Union Theological Seminary with the intention of becoming a priest but abandoned that idea and went back to school. He received his M.A. from Rutgers University in 1966. His background in religion, however, never left him, as evidenced in his plays that reflect his deep religious convictions. Two examples are Balloons, a one-act comedy in which a Christian finds himself in conflict with today’s society, and The Adoration of Fire, a mythical drama with religious overtones. Other plays Wright wrote include Love’s Equation, The Death and Return of Paul Batusta, The Unfinished Saint, A Sacred Impurity: The Dead’s First Invention, The Hunt and Double Night of the Wood, Homage to Anthony Braxton, The Crossing, The Doors, and The Final Celebration. Wright has written three volumes of poetry. His poetry has been published in The Nation, Hiram Poets Review, Yale Review, and Black World.

WRIGHT, JEFFREY. Wright is an accomplished actor both onstage and in films. Born in the mid 1960s in Washington, DC, he was raised by his mother after his father died when he was a baby. Wright enrolled in Amherst College with the intention of following in his mother’s footsteps and becoming a lawyer, but he was sidetracked after he took an acting class. In 1987, upon receiving his B.A., he cancelled plans to attend law school and set his sights on being an actor. After a brief stint at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, he transferred to the Yale Repertory Theatre Program and thereafter at the Arena Playhouse in Washington, DC. Among the plays he appeared in at these venues were Search and Destroy, Juno and the Paycock, and She Stoops to Conquer. Wright also appeared in Othello at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theatre in 1991. His break came in 1993, when he was cast in Tony Kushner’s award-winning play Angels in America: Perestroika—winning a Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award for his performance. Three years later, he was cast as the avant-garde graffiti artist in the film Basquiat. This exposure to a newer, wider audience was a boost to his career. Wright has divided his time since then between the stage, television, and film. His credits in films include Casino Royale, Syriana, The Manchurian Candidate, and Hamlet. In this last movie, he played the gravedigger opposite Ethan Hawke as Hamlet. Other movies include a remake of Shaft, Woody Allen’s Celebrity, Ride with the Devil, and Broken Flowers. Wright returned to the stage in 2001 to perform in Suzan-Lori Park’s Topdog/Underdog at the NYSF/Public Theatre. He reprised the role the next year on Broadway when the play won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. His appearances on television have been in Homicide: Life on the Street, Boycott, Lackawanna Blues, a reprise of Angels of America, and Young Indiana Jones and the Mystery of the Blues. During his brief career thus far, Wright has won acclaim with an Emmy, Golden Globe, American Film Institute, Black Reel (twice), San Diego Film Critics, and Toronto Film Critics Awards.

WRIGHT, RICHARD (1909–60). Wright was a playwright, novelist, short-story writer, radio scriptwriter, essayist, and autobiographer. Born on a plantation near Natchez, MS, Wright, at age six, and his sickly mother were abandoned by his father. They moved from town to town, living with any relative who would take them. He even spent time in an orphanage. The family settled in Jackson, where Wright graduated from the 9th grade at age 15. Within a few years, he was awakened to the harsh reality of black and white race relations in the Deep South. By age 17, he fled to Memphis, TN, to avoid going to jail for petty criminal activities. There he was inspired to be a writer after reading the works of H. L. Mencken, Sinclair Lewis, and Theodore Dreiser. Two years later, he moved to Chicago, where he worked at menial jobs until he secured a position at the Chicago post office as a clerk. All the while, he continued writing and reading. After losing his job during the Great Depression (1930s), he joined the Communist Party. He remained a member for 10 years until 1935, when he became disillusioned with the ideology of the party, about which he later wrote in The God That Failed (1950).

Wright’s writing talents by that time were becoming recognized. He was hired as a writer for the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Writers Project, the Federal Negro Theatre, and the white Federal Experimental Theatre. By 1937, he was getting his works published in such leftist periodicals as Daily Worker and New Masses. A year later, his first important book was published, Uncle Tom’s Children, a collection of short stories that won him a $500 prize. His later books include The Outsider (1953); Black Power (1954); The Color Curtain (1956); White Man, Listen! (1957); and The Long Dream (1958). In 1946, Wright, his wife Ellen, whom he married in 1940, and their five-year-old daughter moved to Paris, where he lived as an expatriate until his death. He died of a heart attack in Paris in 1960 at the age of 51. Two of his works were published posthumously, Eight Men (1961), a collection of stories, and Lawd Today (1963), a novel.

In 1940, Wright and Paul Green adapted Native Son (1941) into a 10-scene protest drama. Set in the rat-infested black ghetto of South Side Chicago, it depicts how an oppressive and restrictive environment shaped the actions of Bigger Thomas, a rebellious black youth. Orson Welles and John Houseman produced it as a Mercury Production at the St. James Theatre in New York City (March–June 1941) for 114 performances under Welles’s direction. The cast included Canada Lee (Bigger Thomas), Anne Burr (Mary Dolton), and Evelyn Ellis (Bigger’s mother). Welles took a trim-downed version of the show on tour before returning it for a second run in New York, this time at the Majestic Theatre (October–January 1943) for 84 performances. Lee reprised the role of Bigger. Thereafter, the show was produced at theaters in and around New York City. Later it was made into two films (1951 and 1978). The early version with Wright playing Bigger was not well received. Cinecom International Films produced the later rendition with a degree of success. Among the cast were Victor Love (Bigger), Elizabeth McGovern (Mary Dolton), Geraldine Page (Mary’s mother), Oprah Winfrey (Bigger’s mother), Matt Dillon (Jan), and Caroll Baker. Other plays Wright authored are Fire and Cloud (1941), a radio play in one-act; The Long Dream (1960), a drama in three acts; and Daddy Goodness (1968), a comedy in three acts. Among the honors and awards Wright received were the Guggenheim fellowship in creative writing (1939) and a Spingarn Medal from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Native Son was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection (1941), the first book by a black author to achieve this distinction.