Black History Month Day 3 ~ Lloyd Richards

[whatever2]

Posted: 2/3/11 at 4:18pm

In 1959, Lloyd Richards became the first African American to direct a play on Broadway, Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun." The critical and box office hit made his one-time acting student Sidney Poitier an international star.

As a director, teacher and discoverer of talent, Mr. Richards had an illustrious cast of proteges, including playwrights John Guare, Athol Fugard, Charles Fuller, Lanford Wilson, Lee Blessing and Wendy Wasserstein.

Mr. Richards's most notable partnership, forged in the 1980s, was with August Wilson. Wilson was a theater novice in 1982 when Mr. Richards selected Wilson's "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" for a reading at the influential summer playwrights' conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford(CT), a conference he ran for 32 years; he later premiered Wilson's play at the Yale Repertory Theatre and directed its Broadway debut in fall 1984. In the ensuing years, he directed five more of Wilson's plays, including "Fences," which earned Mr. Richards a Tony Award for best director in 1987.

Richards, always guarded about his age, died on his 87th birthday in 2006.

(Source: Lloyd Richards' Washington Post obituary (7/1/06))

Updated On: 2/3/11 at 04:18 PM

[Pippin]

Posted: 2/3/11 at 4:29pm

This is a great thing you're doing, whatever2, but can you put everything in the same thread, for simplicities sake, and also so that all these performers will be able to accessed from one thread? I think it will be real cool that in 25 more days, I will be able to look back at one thread and recall everyone that you've listed, as opposed to searching for every single day?

just a request. Keep up the good work.

Updated On: 2/3/11 at 04:29 PM

[whatever2]

Posted: 2/3/11 at 5:45pm

to be honest, i just kind of (unilaterally!) picked up the baton because i think it's a really cool idea, too, and i realized that if i wanted it to continue i probably needed to put my money where my mouth was, so to speak ...

if anyone feels similarly inspired, i hope they'll do what i did and jump in! this idea didn't originate with me, and imho the "project" has a better chance of success with a variety of contributors.

if this works out, i'll consolidate all the posts into a master thread at the end of the month. that way, people who want to comment on a particular topic (like Treemonisha yesterday) can do so, and people who want a handy archive will have it.

[uncageg]

Posted: 2/3/11 at 6:01pm

I like the idea of having it in one thread. I would seek it out and read it.